Old Slayer
by Lena7623
Summary: AU. In the show, Buffy was the first to have been brought back from the dead. What if she wasn't? And what if Giles had a slayer previous to Buffy. This takes place during the last 4 ep. of Season Three, when Giles calls for some old help from an old frie
1. Chapter 1

The names of all characters contained here in are the property of Joss Whedon. No Infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. Well, I created one or two here and there, but it's obvious which ones aren't mine, isn't it? Buffy, Giles, and the rest of the Scooby gang.

"Stop! NOPD!" Detective Danielle Smyth shouted as she ran down the road after a criminal. He was wanted for murder, and now he was running from the police. Danielle was glad that he was running, because that meant that she could now beat the hell out of him. Luckily, she had an advantage over the criminal that he could never have guessed: she was a Vampire Slayer.

She quickly caught up with him. Her excuse to her coworkers was that she ran track in high school. It was the truth, but it still didn't adequately explain why she could run down anyone who ran from her in a few seconds, or why she could pick up a person and toss him across the room (this only happened when she forgot to hide her extra strength from others).

She threw the criminal into a wall, pinned him there, cuffed him, and started to read him his rights. Nearly a minute later, her partner, Detective James Delano, came huffing up behind her. In the April heat of New Orleans, he was dripping with sweat while she was still dry. "I don't know how you can run so fast," James said while panting. "Were you a cheetah in a former life?"

"Maybe," she said with a grin. "Now go get the car so that we can take this guy in." James made quick work of running down the block, retrieving the car, and helping her put the criminal inside so that they could arraign him at the station properly.

After bringing him into the station, she let two other detectives take over with questioning so that she and James could go and grab a cup of coffee at one of the local cop hangouts, a place called Sid's Diner. "So tell me," James started after they got their coffee, "are you a cheetah?"

Danielle only grinned at him. "I think you already know the answer to that, James," she said. "Of course I'm a cheetah. I keep it a secret from you and everyone else because I don't want you all to get jealous of me and get all green with envy."

James started to laugh. "Well then that explains everything," he said. He took another sip of his coffee. "You're a strange woman." Danielle and James had been partners since she had been promoted to Detective in the Homicide division two years ago, right after her twenty-sixth birthday. He had already put nearly ten years into the division, but his old partner had recently retired from active duty after taking a bullet to his knee. He had survived the injury, but now required a cane to walk. While there was a ten-year difference between James and Danielle, they quickly became good friends. His wife even invited her over for dinner on occasion, since she lived the bachelorette life of constantly eating out of a Chinese food box.

After they finished their cup of coffee, Danielle had James drop her off at her little apartment. She could afford to purchase something better, but it was in a good neighborhood and she only needed enough room for her and her black and brown Chihuahua, Odin, who was named that for his blue eyes.

After fixing Odin some dinner, (the best wet dog food that could be bought because he was spoiled rotten) Danielle grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on her couch to watch some TV. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning, but she tended to be on the night shift, so she was used to being up late into the night and sleeping until noon. Just as she was settling in, the phone rang.

Hoping that it was someone from the station calling to see if she would come in for something or another, she answered. "Smyth," she said, the habit from answering at work sticking at home.

"Danielle?" It was a voice on the other end that she hadn't heard since she was nineteen. Honestly, she hadn't heard it since not long after the night that her former Watcher, Rupert Giles, had done CPR on her and revived her in a back alley in a bad part of New York City.

Danielle nearly dropped her beer on the carpet. She sat up and sat her drink on the coffee table. "Yes? Rupert?" she asked, shocked. His voice was the last one she ever expected to hear again. Another slayer had been called before Rupert could tell the counsel that she wasn't really dead, so they decided just to allow them to continue to think that she was gone. He wanted her to have a real life, which unfortunately didn't involve him. He had been quickly reassigned back to England. Danielle looked over at her caller I.D., which said that he was calling from somewhere called Sunnydale, California. "I honestly never thought that I'd hear from you again."

"Yes, well I didn't want the counsel to discover about you. You're quite an oddity as far as they are concerned," Rupert said. "Technically, you are the oldest living Slayer on record. I wouldn't be calling you like this, but I need your help."

She didn't want to admit how glad she was that she was hearing his voice. She had missed him in the past nine years. Danielle honestly had a ton of vacation time coming to her (she hadn't taken one in the eight years that she had been on the force), so sparing a hand to Rupert wasn't out of the question. "I'm all ears, Rupert. What do you need?"

"I've was assigned to another Slayer a few years ago by the name of Buffy," he started. "She's quite a bit like you, actually. We're facing an Ascension from the town's mayor, and we're outnumbered and we have another slayer who's gone rouge."

"There's another one?" Danielle asked, surprised. "Before they know it, the council is going to have an army of them. By the way, what the hell's an Ascension?"

"It's when a human transforms into a pure demon," Rupert said.

"Can we say ew?" Danielle asked, slightly grossed out. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

"Power mostly," he said. "The mayor had been keeping himself alive for over a century. He's a powerful warlock as well."

"Well aren't you guys just a lucky bunch of coconuts?" Danielle asked.

"We need all the help that we can get," Rupert said. "I wouldn't ask this of you if there was any way around it."

Before he could continue with his apologies, Danielle interrupted by saying, "I'll be there as soon as I can tell my captain that I'm going on vacation."

"Your captain?" he asked, sounding confused.

"I'm a detective for the New Orleans police department," she said, sounding a little proud of herself. "I've still got slayer strength and healing all going for me. It's the easiest way to go around looking for vampires without looking suspicious, other than I'm going around looking for vampires. It's really not that odd for New Orleans. I've got Anne Rice to thank for that." She was babbling now.

He let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you for doing this for me, Danielle," he said. They quickly said their goodbyes and she hung up the phone. She quickly called the airport to schedule herself a flight to Sunnydale, going out tomorrow night, which gave her tomorrow to convince her captain to let her take a vacation, considering she didn't even know when she would be back.

The next day, when Danielle talked to her captain, it was apparently a lot easier to take the vacation than she thought. He had apparently been thinking of sending her out on it on order, since she had never taken one. Supposedly, taking vacations made for better police officers. He had heard that from the resident shrink, who thought that Danielle was a little batty anyway.

She called Rupert back to tell him when she was arriving, and he promised to pick her up. He wouldn't hear of having her stay in a hotel, despite her objections, since vampires could easily enter a hotel room without that pesky invitation. She would be spending time in his guest room in his apartment.

She hated flying, mostly because, on the Red Eye, there was nothing to do. They didn't even show movies because that was when most people would sleep. Not her, though. Not with the hours that she kept. So, her mind floated back to memories of when she was The Chosen One. She was the one and only slayer.

She had just turned eighteen when she was called. It was highly unusual for a girl to be called so old, but she just supposed that she was the best for the job out of the crop of potentials. She hadn't had a watcher beforehand. She figured that she was different when she started throwing street thugs around as if they were stuffed animals. She had been a street kid for over three years, having run away after her parents died in a car accident when she was fifteen. She hadn't been interested in going into a foster home, since no one was left to take care of her. Life had sucked on the streets, but she had quickly adapted to it. If you didn't adapt, you died quick or became a junkie or hooker for some lowlife pimp. She had managed to avoid all three fates. She supposed that had said something for being a potential slayer.

Rupert had only recently graduated from the Watcher's Academy. He had been the best available Watcher, so he was sent to find her. When he first approached her, she had pinned him against the wall, wondering what the fuck he wanted from her. Everyone wanted something from you on the streets. It was whether or not you were willing to give it was the question. When the "misunderstanding" had been cleared, she warily went with him. At the time, he was only thirty-three, and he was quite handsome to her. She figured that, even if he did want to sleep with her or something like that, she could live with that easily. He wasn't anything like that at all. She had stayed with him for nearly a month before she finally stopped locking the bedroom door every time she went to sleep. She eventually grew to trust him, and they had actually become friends over the year that they were together. She had even fallen in love with him, but, from the Slayer's Handbook that he had given her, she learned that Watchers and Slayers weren't supposed to have those sorts of feelings for each other. They weren't even supposed to be as close as Rupert and she were, so they were already breaking some rules, and she didn't want to get him in any more trouble.

Everything changed one night in an alley in New York City, where they were living. Some demon had strangled her in an alley. She had probably been dead for nearly a minute. For her, it was like a blink of an eye. There wasn't a white tunnel, or heaven or hell. She just figured that she hadn't been dead long enough. One moment, she was trying to fight off some slimy looking demon that had its giant, meaty hands wrapped around her throat, then the next, she was laying on the ground, coughing and staring up at Rupert, who had tears in his eyes. She honestly couldn't believe that she had been dead. After having her checked out at a hospital, they went home. By that time, the council had already called, telling Rupert that another Slayer had been called. Instead of calling to let them know that she wasn't dead, they decided just to let them go on thinking that she was. They had about another month together before they called him back to England. That had honestly been the best month of her life. She had wanted to die when he left. They decided that it was best that they didn't have contact after that, since he didn't want the council finding her. At the airport, he had kissed her for the first time and quickly left to catch his plane without explaining his feelings for her. After spending nearly a month crying over him, she had finally managed to leave their apartment. She had moved down to New Orleans, knowing someone who lived there, who hooked her up with the police department.

Now, nine years later, she was going out to California to meet him again. She wasn't really sure how she felt about that. She had even kept up with her Slayer duties in New Orleans, since some vampires thought that it was a great feeding ground to grab up all the Anne Rice dorks and use them as a buffet. She had gotten used to being a slayer, but she hadn't had a Watcher since Rupert, and, while excited, was also apprehensive about seeing him again.


	2. Chapter 2

It was nearly three a.m. when her plane landed in Sunnydale. With it being five a.m. at home, she was finally ready to go to bed. She honestly figured that she wouldn't be getting any sleep, however. She did need a shower, though. Her white button down shirt was rumbled, and she had spilled a little beer on her jeans during the flight. Rupert was standing at the departure gate when she walked through. She recognized him immediately. Despite the near decade that had passed, he still looked mostly the same. She wasn't sure if he would recognize her, since, the last time he saw her, she had cotton candy pink hair, but, as soon as their eyes met, he smiled at her in recognition.

When she walked over to him, the first thing she said was, "You've got grey hair." She shook her head and laughed. "Sorry, hi how are you?"

Rupert laughed a little. "Well, you've got brown hair, so now we're even." He took her bag from her hands and started to lead her to his car. "I have to admit, I've been doing better. This business with the mayor has left us completely perplexed to say the least. I wouldn't have called you, but frankly I was out of options."

"What, the council couldn't spare the hundreds of people that they keep employed back in England?" she asked him. "There wasn't enough tweed in the United States to clothe them all?"

Rupert looked away for a second. "Actually, I've been released from my duties as Watcher, in all technicality," he said. "I wouldn't perform Buffy's Cruciamentum, so they fired me and replaced me with another watcher."

"You wouldn't perform her what?" she asked, sounding confused. She hadn't had to do anything like that in the year that she had been the official slayer.

"On a slayer's eighteenth birthday, her watcher is supposed to drain her of her slayer powers and she is supposed to face a vampire without her powers, merely using her wits and what information she already has. It's a test devised by the council to make sure that a slayer isn't just getting by on luck. You were lucky enough to be called after you had turned eighteen. Well, I wouldn't go through with it, and told Buffy about it. They fired me for getting too close to my slayer. They didn't approve of my 'fatherly' relationship with her."

Danielle couldn't help but think that they certainly wouldn't approve of her having been in love with him, but she kept that to herself. She still wasn't really sure about how he felt about her back then. Honestly, she wasn't sure how she still felt about him now. Seeing him again brought many old feelings rushing forth.

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Danielle said.

"Buffy's still alive, and she's not angry with me," Rupert said. "I couldn't ask for much more than that, honestly. I never did trust the council completely." They finally reached his car, something old and rusty that Danielle couldn't name because it had seen much better days. He placed her bag in his trunk then opened the passenger door for her.

"Still the ultimate gentlemen," Danielle said softly. He must have heard her, because he smiled at her again. They quickly pulled away from the airport and on the car ride to his apartment, Danielle watched through the window as the sun rose. "You know, I've actually never been to California. I didn't even realize that you were back in the states. How did you know where to reach me?"

Rupert sighed. "I have to be honest. I've been keeping up with where you were through the years. I expected you to move from place to place, but you stayed in New Orleans. I didn't realize that you had become a police officer, though."

Danielle smiled. "Yeah, it seemed like the perfect career for an ex-slayer. I was promoted to detective two years ago. My partner's wife seems to think of me as little orphan Annie, since she insists on feeding me dinner at least once a week." She turned to him. "Do I still give off the air of street urchin?"

Rupert laughed. "I don't think you do," he told her, still looking at the road.

"Honestly, I think it's because I only live with a Chihuahua whom I feed better than myself," Danielle said. "Speaking of which, I've got to call them later to make sure that they're feeding him right. He won't eat cheap food anymore. He's too spoiled. He's the closest thing I'll ever have to a child, so I might as well spoil him rotten."

Rupert laughed again. "So, you're not dating anyone or anything like that?"

"Nope, I'm doing good taking care of myself and Odin the dog," Danielle said. "I couldn't handle anything as complicated as a relationship. It's hard enough to date a woman cop, much less a supernatural protector against vampires, you know? For not being on a Hellmouth or anything, it's a busy supernatural city."

"It's the Anne Rice factor," Rupert said. "So many young kids think that being a vampire is tragic and hip, and the real vampires think that…"

"That they're a Happy Meal on legs," Danielle finished. "That's mostly what I run into. So, what's the situation here? Why's your guy trying to turn into a demon?"

Rupert filled her in as much as possible during the rest of the trip. Apparently, this mayor had been planning for over a hundred years to ascend to demonhood, using the energies of the Hellmouth to attract demons and vampires to a city that would be a haven for the damned. He had a veritable army of vampires working for him, along with a renegade slayer named Faith, who had turned to the dark side. Another slayer had been called forth after Buffy drowned in a shallow pool after being bitten by a powerful vampire that had called himself the Master, who was subsequently killed by Buffy after a friend of hers did CPR on her.

"That seems to happen a lot around here," Danielle joked. "So now there are technically three slayers running around, only one is bad and one is almost thirty? They really are building an army of slayers, aren't they? The council knows about the two of them?"

"We didn't know that another slayer had been called until she appeared one day, trying to kill Buffy because she thought she was a vampire herself," Rupert admitted. "When no one called me about another slayer being called, I honestly didn't think much of it. I didn't think that it would happen again."

"You thought that I was a one time deal?" Danielle asked. "Well, apparently I'm not that special after all, you know, other than being the oldest slayer and all, at least as far as we know."

"As far as the record go, you are the oldest by at least five years, and those records aren't the most reliable," Rupert said. They arrived at his apartment, and he walked around to open the door for her before she could open it herself. "You do realize that the council might find out about you since you came here?"

"Yes, I thought about that," Danielle said. "What can they do to me at this point, though? Now they have Buffy and apparently this Faith girl if they can control her. Besides, I would have come even if I knew they would find out about me. Does she know that I'm coming?" Danielle couldn't bring herself to say 'your slayer,' since she still considered herself to be his slayer.

"Yes, I told her everything," Rupert admitted, opening the front door for her. Inside, there was a tiny blond girl asleep on the couch. "She wanted to meet you, but I suppose that she feel asleep waiting."

As if she heard them come in, the girl sat up and stretched. She yawned and said, "Hi Giles," sleepily. She then turned to look at Danielle. She rubbed her eyes. Danielle couldn't believe just how…young she looked. She had to be eighteen, but she honestly didn't look a day over fifteen or so. "Are you her?" The girl sounded friendly but wary.

Danielle smiled. "Um…yes, I guess I am. I'm Detective…err…Danielle Smyth," she said, remembering that she wasn't on duty at the moment, and wouldn't be for at least a month. She stuck out her hand for Buffy to shake.

"Buffy Summers," Buffy said, shaking her hand. "You're a detective? At a career fair last year, they told me that that was a good career for me."

"Yeah, you get to chase people and sometimes beat them up without getting in too much trouble," Danielle said. "Make sure they're running from you first, though. They don't like police brutality."

"So, you're really an old slayer?" Buffy asked. "I thought that slayers all came with an expiration date."

"Well, I'm sure that you understand it better than anyone," she told Buffy. "I was strangled by a demon, Rupert revived me, and another slayer was called before we even realized what was going on. We just didn't tell the council that I was still alive. They just assumed I was dead because another Watcher's potential got powered up."

"I was honestly looking forward to retiring before Faith was seduced by the dark side," Buffy said. "I was thinking that maybe I would get a normal life and all. But nope, Faith went crazy on us."

Danielle shrugged. "Well, maybe y'all can bring her back to the side of good."

"She didn't seem too receptive when I last checked," Buffy said. "She accidentally killed a person, and it just went downhill from there. We figured it out when she tried to rip the soul out of my boyfriend."

"Why would she do a thing like that?" Danielle asked. She couldn't think of a reason why someone would rip the soul out of a human, unless it was just to piss her off.

Rupert interrupted before Buffy could answer. "That's a story for another night. It's late, and I'm sure that Danielle would like to get some sleep."

Danielle arched an eyebrow at him, but didn't say anything. She figured that it was a long and very complicated story.

"I guess that I'll be walking home then," Buffy said. She turned back to Danielle and said, "Thank god it's not a school night, or I'd be royally screwed."

Buffy walked out the door after exchanging goodbyes. Danielle turned to Rupert and said, "It's complicated, isn't it?"

"Very," Rupert answered. "I don't want you to think badly of her because of it."

"How bad can it be?" Danielle asked. "It's not like the girl's dating a vampire, is she?" When Rupert didn't answer her, her mouth dropped. "She's dating a vampire? And he has a soul? I'm dealing with kids who think that vampires are pure and tortured souls and she's dating the real deal? How the hell did she find this guy?"

"He had helped her on a number of occasions," Rupert said. "Of course, then he had his soul taken from him and he turned evil and she had to send him to hell. Then, of course, he came back from hell with a soul after one of Buffy's friends put it back into him, and apparently I'm to believe that he's fixed again. I don't like it, but he's got a soul again and I can't really stop her."

"And I'm sure the Watcher's Council is thrilled with this," Danielle said sarcastically. She could imagine their heads spinning at the very thought of a Vampire Slayer in love with a vampire with a soul. "They must be freaking out about all of this."

"Quite honestly, I really don't care what the council thinks anymore," Rupert said, sitting down on the couch.

Danielle sat down next to him. "Well, good," she said. "At least that means that we can do whatever we need to do to deal with this mayor thing. So, do any of Buffy's friends know that I'm here, or what I am?"

"I didn't know how to tell them exactly what you are," Rupert admitted. "They know that you're here, and that you're an old friend of mine, but I'm not sure whether we should tell them that you're a slayer as well. That might be too much for them to handle."

"Then I'm just an old friend of yours who happens to be a cop," Danielle said. "Works for me."


	3. Chapter 3

Danielle woke up around noon the next day, having finally went to bed that morning around seven after spending some time catching up with Rupert on what each of them had been doing over the past nine years. He had been back for over two years, being Buffy's watcher. He was working as the librarian at the local high school where Buffy was a senior now, about to graduate. She was friends with some of the local students, which Danielle had always understood as a big no-no. Apparently, Buffy was very willful and managed to call most of the shots in the Watcher/Slayer relationship. Danielle and Rupert had treated each other as equals long ago, but she had never really bossed over him, nor had he over her. Buffy seemed like a sweet girl, however. She was probably just a natural leader, and, if she had a group of friends helping her, then she would be the natural leader. She was just surprised that Rupert didn't lead her.

When she walked down stairs, she saw a note on the kitchen counter for her. She picked it up to read. It was from Rupert, saying that he wanted her to meet him at his school when she woke up. School wasn't in session that day, but Buffy and her group of friends were all meeting there to discuss plans for what they should do next about the Mayor and the situation. After calling James to make sure that Odin was ok (he missed his mom but was playing well with the kids) and to make sure that they were feeding him properly (they were), she quickly showered and got dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and boots. She had her gun specially shipped with her on the plane (she didn't feel right without her side arm, and you could bribe anyone in New Orleans to do anything for you), and she holstered it under her arm and put her jacket on over it. She took a taxi to the high school, since she had no clue where it was nor did she feel like walking around town and getting lost.

Her fears were unfounded, however, after seeing just how small the town really was. For a place being on a Hellmouth, it seemed like a quite suburb. She could see children spending their weekend playing out on the streets and people walking around town as if they didn't have a care in the world. _Do these people not know?_ She thought to herself. _How can they be so oblivious?_ She knew that people had amazing abilities to ignore what was going on right in front of their faces, however.

When she arrived at the school, she could see Buffy sitting out on the front steps. Buffy waved at her and said, "Hello!" in a peppy voice. Danielle got out of the cab, paid the driver, and then watched as he drove off. She heard Buffy walk up behind her and say, "Giles wanted me to sit out here and wait for you so you didn't get lost inside of the school on the way to the library."

"Then he remembers my sense of direction," Danielle said with a laugh. Every slayer got something different, and Danielle did not inherit any sense of direction in finding where she was going. She hoped that Buffy had better direction sense. She looked up at the school wistfully, remembering her one year in school. She had been a fairly popular student, but, when her parents died, there was no one to take her in, and she couldn't bare the thought of an orphanage, so instead she ran away to New York City. She had eventually had to earn her G.E.D. so that she could enter the police academy, but she had never had a Prom, she never had a graduation ceremony, nor had she had anything that a normal teen had. Buffy didn't know how lucky she was to have such things.

"Hey, are you coming?" Buffy asked her, turning back to look at her from the doorway to the inside of the school.

"Yes, I am. I just got lost in memories for a second, sorry," Danielle said, following Buffy up the stairs.

Buffy quickly led her to the library, which was rather large considering the smallish size of the school. Rupert was already sitting in the library, along with several others. There was a young redheaded girl sitting next to a black, spiky haired youth, who was holding her hand. There was a tanned, brunette young woman who looked positively bored, who was sitting near another dark haired young man. Rupert was standing beside the front desk of the library, and standing next to him was another gentleman, close to her age, maybe a year or two older, who had to be a Watcher. Dark hair, glasses, suit, his whole demeanor screamed "watcher" to Danielle. He looked so young and fresh. He looked like he was younger than she was. He was probably the same age that Rupert was when he and Danielle first met.

"Here she is, I found her," Buffy said, sounding proud of herself.

Danielle ran her fingers through her shoulder length brown hair, wishing that she had remembered to tie it back like she usually did. She waved to the young kids all sitting at a table, and they waved back to her and said hello. "Yes, everyone, this is Danielle. She's an old friend of mine back from when I lived in New York. She's a demon hunter, and I called her to help us with the Mayor. We've only got around a month left before graduation, and I thought that we could use all of the help that we could get."

Danielle noticed a couple of things. Rupert didn't tell her last name, what she really was, or really even the extent of how well they knew each other. "Danielle, this is Willow, Oz, Xander, Cordelia, and Wesley," Rupert said, pointing out everyone to her. Danielle was just amazed at how young but…experienced they all looked. They all honestly looked like they had been through hell and back several times.

Everyone began to fill her in more on exactly what was going on with the Mayor and his group. The Mayor had been planning for one-hundred years to ascend into demon-hood, because he wanted the power that went along with becoming a pure demon. Danielle shuddered at the thought of a true demon. She had never seen one face to face herself, but the pictures that she had been shown when she was younger were enough to enter into more than a few nightmares. They didn't know exactly what type he wanted to turn into yet. There were thousands of types that he could become, each one worse than the last. She was quickly worried that she had gotten in over her head over some unresolved feelings, but she kept her counsel to herself for the time being.

As for the rouge slayer, she was an orphan who reminded Danielle a lot of herself back when she was seventeen. She had come here from Boston, after her own watcher had been brutally murdered in front of her by an ancient vampire named Kakistos. Then, just as everyone was gaining her trust, a rouge watcher by the name of Gwendolyn Post came in, claiming to be Faith's watcher, only to abuse Faith's trust by using her in her own evil schemes. Then, one night, after she took Buffy for a night on the town, she accidentally staked the assistant Mayor, who seemed like he was going to come to Buffy and Faith and tell them about the Mayor's schemes. Faith tried to blame it on Buffy, but she didn't succeed. Just when it seemed that Buffy's boyfriend, Angel, was getting through to her, Wesley, thinking that he was doing his duty, came in with the Watcher's Council to try and take Faith back to England. She escaped, and went over to the Mayor's side. They figured this out when she tried to take Angel's soul and bring him over to the Mayor's side.

This was a lot for Danielle to absorb. "So, you're telling me that there's another slayer running around, she's in cahoots with the Mayor, who wants to turn himself into a Pure Demon, which, as far as I know, is the stuff that nightmares are made of," Danielle said after all was explained. Buffy nodded. "Well, just wanted to make sure. So, do you have a plan to stop him? Why doesn't someone just walk up to him and shoot him in the face?" Danielle knew there had to be a catch to this.

"Well, he's invulnerable," Buffy said.

"Wait…huh?" Danielle asked. "Nothing's invulnerable. Everything's got a weakness."

"Well, in this case, he really is invulnerable," someone said from behind her.

Danielle nearly jumped out of her own skin. She hadn't heard anyone behind her from the table she was sitting at. Instinctively, she jumped out of her chair and spun around, reaching for her gun. She almost had it pulled out when she heard Buffy shout, "Stop, it's just Angel!"

Danielle paused in mid-move, her hand inside her jacket, fingers grazing the handle of her gun. Frozen, she looked over the gentleman behind her. He looked around twenty-five, dark hair, pale, brown eyed. He was a little over six feet, so he was taller than she was. "Don't sneak up on a cop," she said, taking a deep breath. She managed to relax after a second, and slowly sat back down. She understood that he was a vampire with a soul, but he still set off all of her Slayer senses that screamed "danger." She was confused as to why Buffy was able to be around him, much less date him.

She kept an eye on Angel as he walked back around to stand beside Buffy. "Sorry about that," Angel said, watching her as well. "I saw it, his invulnerability. I threw a knife into his hand and, when he pulled it out, it automatically healed. None of us can hurt him."

"So, basically, we're screwed," Danielle said. She didn't hear any objections. "Well, I just wanted to make sure. And how did you get here anyway?" she asked Angel, still bewildered by his entire presence.

"The sewers," he said simply.

"Of course," Danielle said back quickly. "How else would a creature of the night get around during the day but the sewers?" Inwardly, she was still freaking out.

Plans were made for that night. Buffy would watch over the Mayor to see what he was doing, possibly to discover anything about him, such as a weakness. Danielle would go with her as backup. The rest of the group would try and do more research about the Ascension.

After plans were made, Danielle stepped out of the library to have a cigarette. Instead of going outside, she went into the gym of the high school for some reason. She wasn't in the mood for the heat. As she stood near the trashcan, so as to tap her ashes into it, she felt someone standing behind her. She turned around to see that it was Angel.

"You're really got to stop with that whole 'sneaky' thing," she said, not taking her eyes off of him. "So, you're Mr. Angel, vampire with a soul? How does that happen?"

"Gypsy curse," he said. "They gave me my soul back so that I would feel pain for all of the bad things that I had done over the years. How did you know that I was a vampire?"

"Rupert told me," she said. It was the truth, but she also felt it as soon as he came into the room. All slayers had a sixth sense about sensing vampires, or so her watcher had told her years back.

"That might be true, but that's not the whole story, is it?" Angel asked her. "You're a slayer, aren't you?" He asked her, but he sounded like he was sure of it. When she didn't answer right away, he said, "Vampires can sense when a slayer is around and who she is. It's second nature. What I don't understand is how you're here when Buffy and even Faith are running around."

She didn't see any point in not telling him at this point. He had already guessed the important part. "I was the one and only Slayer ten years ago. I was strangled; my watcher revived me and took me to the hospital. By the time we got home, another slayer had already been called and the Council thought that I was dead. Decided that that's how I wanted them to think."

"So, Buffy wasn't the first to be revived," Angel mused. "I couldn't believe that that was the first time that it happened. Was Giles your watcher?"

"Yes, he was. He was recalled by the council, since they seem to have the power of revoking citizenship and all that mess. He had to go back," Danielle said. That really had been the saddest day of her life. "The other watcher doesn't know about me, so please don't tell him. Only Buffy, Rupert, and now you know exactly what I am."

"You're a slayer that's almost thirty. That's very impressive," Angel said.

"Yes well, New Orleans only gets newbie vampires," Danielle said, brushing off the praise. "If I had been on a Hellmouth, it might be a different story. I might not be here today. I just had to survive New York City. Slightly less hard than surviving Sunnydale, so I hear."

"It's not too bad if you're not stupid, which most of the populous seems to be," Angel said. "Just don't go looking for trouble, and stay home at night."

Danielle put out her cigarette on the side of the trashcan, and then threw it inside. "I should be going, and you might want to as well, with the sun being out and everything." With that, she walked off.


	4. Chapter 4

That night, Danielle and Buffy went out to patrol. The graveyards seemed very busy to Danielle. There were also many graveyards. There were twelve if what Buffy told her was true. She couldn't understand why a town this small had so many graveyards, and she asked Buffy about this while walking through the fourth graveyard.

"Sunnydale is a busy place for the undead, with being on top of a Hellmouth and all," she said while chewing on a piece of gum. "Everyday, when you read the newspaper, someone has died of 'spontaneous neck rupture' or has disappeared without a trace. I've always wondered what people thought about it. This place looks so normal on the outside, but it's like it's rotting on the inside with evil or something."

Danielle could only stare at Buffy for a second. "I still can't believe how much all of you have been through," she said, amazed. "How many apocalypses did you say that you guys adverted?"

"Three, so far," she said. "With the Mayor, if we succeed, it'll be four. There was the Master, then stopping Acathala from swallowing the world, and then there was some cult of demons who wanted to open the Hellmouth and we stopped that." She counted them off on her fingers while naming them. I'm sure that you've stopped dozens."

Danielle just shook her head. "I may be about to hit thirty, but I don't think that I've been through quite as much as you guys have. While being the one and only for that year, yes, I saw a lot and stopped a full fledged apocalypse myself, but after that, most of what I saw was dumb vampires who all claimed to be Lestat." Danielle smiled at the thought of vampires running around in velvet with bad French accents. "Ever gotten any of those?"

Buffy laughed. "Oh god, yes! About once a year or so, I get some Euro trash wannabe who seems more intent on trying to sleep with me than kill me. Those are the easy kills." She paused for a moment. "Have you ever gotten someone claiming to be Dracula?"

Danielle shook her head. "No, I haven't. In almost a decade, I've never gotten a Dracula. I've gotten everyone in the Anne Rice universe at some point or another, but never Dracula. I wonder why."

"Maybe he's real," Buffy mused, and then shook her head. "Nah! Who would put out a book about themselves with all the ways to kill them? It doesn't make any sense."

"Well, I've met Anne Rice once, and I don't think that she knows the first thing about vampires," Danielle said. "Now, I think she may have met a witch or two, but I don't think she's ever met a vampire. She's too romantic about them."

Before Buffy could give a response, three vampires came from around the side of a crypt, with which Sunnydale was also filled. There were two men and a woman, and they all had a predatory look in their eyes that said that they thought they were looking at dinner. "Hey there pretty ladies!" One of the men, a greasy biker looking man, shouted to them. "You up for a good time?"

Danielle couldn't help but roll her eyes. They didn't look fresh out of the grave, but they couldn't have been at it for that long. Not with those lines. She looked to her side and watched as Buffy pulled a stake from her purse. "Only if by a good time you mean penetration with sharp wooden objects, then sure, why not?" Buffy quipped. Danielle had to stifle a giggle.

"I'd like to penetrate her with my wood," the other male, who honestly looked like a football player with a varsity athlete's jacket, said.

Danielle had to groan that time. "Can we just kill them to stop the bad pick up lines already?" she said to Buffy. Without waiting for an answer, Danielle quickly pursued the lone female, who looked as if she had been a cocktail waitress in a bar for forty years before being undead. Sometimes she wondered why vampires picked others to sire. She didn't see anything particularly interesting about any of the three.

She started off on the woman by punching her in the face. She woman went down quickly, and Danielle, pulling a stake from inside of her jacket, quickly staked her in the heart, turning before she could even watch her turn to dust. That one couldn't have been at being a vampire long; she was too easy to take down.

When Danielle turned, she could see Buffy fighting back and forth with the biker. She had taken the obvious alpha male of the group, who was also probably the strongest. _So, she likes a challenge_, Danielle thought to herself as she quickly scanned for the football player. He was apparently behind her, because Danielle felt a swift kick to her back, sending her flying into the wall of the crypt. Danielle quickly got up and dusted herself off. "Is that all you got?" she asked, a little breathless. "You kick like a girl!"

He seemed to be offended by her jab at his masculinity, because he growled as he charged at her. Danielle wanted him distracted by his anger, since anger can cause mistakes in some individuals. He was one of them, since he didn't see the arm that she stuck out to trip him until he ran into it, flailing towards the ground.

After she cloths lined him, she quickly gave him a swift kick to the ribs, making sure he stayed down long enough. She had just enough time to stake him as well before he tried to get back up. She turned just in time to watch Buffy ram her own stake through the biker's chest, which died in a puff of dust. She dusted herself off as she turned back to Danielle. "So, where were we?" she asked, as if the interruption to their conversation had only been a phone call, not three vampires wanting to drink them dry.

"Anne Rice being far too romantic about vampires and my theory that she's never met one," Danielle said, smiling. "You can turn it off quick, can't you?"  
"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, looking confused.

"You can switch back and fourth between slayer and normal," Danielle said. "It took me years to figure that out. I use to get really hyped up after a long night of patrolling and slaying."

"Yeah, Faith was like that," Buffy said quietly. "She could barely turn it off during the day in a conversation about burritos. She would get buzzed off killing vampires."

"You don't?" Danielle asked. "You hold life and death in your hands every night. You don't feel anything about that?"

"Not so much, anymore," Buffy said. She started walking again in the direction they had been heading. "Being a slayer is my duty, my obligation. It's not my life, though. I have plenty of other things to look forward to in my life, once I get past high school."

"You have what most of the other slayers throughout the ages would have died for," Danielle said, sounding a little wistful herself. "You have friends, a family, and a life. You're going to high school, which I didn't even finish, although that's my own fault more than anything is. I'm just a dropout. You're going to be graduating and maybe even going to college."

"Yeah, I am. I'm going to the University of California in Sunnydale, but I'm making a way for a life after slaying," Buffy said. "One day, Faith will die, someone else will be called, and I can have a life." She paused for a moment. "Like you, actually."

Danielle smiled. "I had to die to get my life, then change my last name and run away to make sure the council wouldn't find me. Don't get me wrong, it was worth it, but it entails a lot of sacrifices." Loosing Rupert had been one of them. That sacrifice felt like it would kill her at the time.

"You ran away from the council," Buffy asked.

"They thought I was still dead by the time we could even think to tell them," Danielle said. "Rupert didn't see a reason to correct them at the time. There was no apocalypse to avert that could prove I was still alive. Maybe he didn't think it could happen again."

"He did look like someone hit him with a bag of bricks when Kendra showed up," Buffy said. "I nearly had to punch him to bring him back to reality." She paused for a moment. "I guess he was thinking about you, wasn't he?"

Danielle shrugged as they finish walking out of the cemetery. "Hard to know what someone's ever thinking," she said. "So, how many cemeteries do we have after this?"

"This is the last one for the night," she said. "None of the others have fresh graves. Going to all twelve in one night is just asking for too much trouble."

Danielle walked Buffy back to her home, and then returned to Rupert's apartment. She figured that he would be asleep by the time that she returned, but, when she opened the door (he had given her a key), she saw him sitting on the couch, reading a book.

"What are you reading?" she asked him.

He looked up at her, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. "Trying to find more on the Ascension," he said as he shut the book. "So far, still nothing." He tossed the old book onto the coffee table, where it landed with a cloud of dust. "We can only find very little on it at all. We don't know what kind of demon that he'll turn into, or what'll happen afterwards."

"I was thinking mass chaos and destruction personally, but I could always be wrong," Danielle said, trying to keep it light. "You always were the brains." She sat down on the couch next to him.

He smiled a little at her joke. "So, how was the patrol tonight?"

She sighed, leaning back into the couch. "Obviously, I have never been on a Hellmouth before," she said. "The couple of cemeteries that we went through all had vampires in them. Not even fresh, out-of-the-ground ones. One football player kicked me face first into a crypt wall." She sat up long enough to remove her jacket, and then plopped back down.

Rupert looked at the gun that was holstered under her arm. "How on earth did you get that onto a plane? Did you tell the airline you were traveling for work?"

"You obviously don't know New Orleans," she said with a chuckle. "I know someone who works there. He got it in for me. I can't go anywhere without my side arm. Why, does it bother you?"

"No, it's just that they're mostly worthless against the supernatural," Rupert said. "But you already know that."

"Yeah, I know. It's mostly there for comfort. I get around that in other ways. When I was a beat cop, I had my nightstick sharpened into a sharp point," Danielle said. "My partner thought that I was bizarre, but it scared the kids running around at night. Guess they thought I'd plant it in their heads or something." She laughed a little. "Let me go put this thing upstairs, and I'll be back in the minute. Who knows, maybe I can help you research."

He laughed a little as she walked upstairs, remembering how much she hated having to research back in the day. She walked upstairs, a little stiff from the fight with the footballer from earlier. She unholstered her gun once she reached the guestroom, placing it on the nightstand along with her holster. After tossing her jacket on the nightstand as well, she slowly walked back downstairs and sat back down on the couch with a groan.

"Are you ok?" Rupert asked her ask she sat down.

"I'll be fine by tomorrow," she said, brushing it off. "Just feeling like, well, like I got kicked into a concrete wall, actually. Just a good night's sleep will fix it."

"Well, you'll find that in short supply around here," Rupert said with a smile.

"Well good, 'cause I've never had one anyway," she said. "I usually sit up half the night watching reruns and throwing socks at my Chihuahua. He fetches them and brings them back to me." She laughed, thinking of little Odin running across the floor, sliding through the kitchen to get to a sock. "So, hand me a book or something. I'm still wide-awake and I'll be that way for a while. May as well put it to good use, right?"

Rupert laughed when she talked about her dog. "You know, I always pictured you having a dog. You have too much energy to just have a cat or bird." He passed her a book, one that looked as old as the last. At least it was in English, since she had never had a knack for other languages. (All she could do was say "Stop, police!" and "What's you sign?" in fifteen different languages. Past that, she was at a loss.)

"You were sure that I'd have a pet?" she asked with a wry grin.

"You always took in stray dogs back in New York," he reminded her. "I'm just surprised that you actually paid for one."

She smiled at the memory. She had brought in every stray dog that didn't try to bite her. She had three that stuck around by the time she moved, and they all had come with her to New Orleans. The last one had only died recently, which was when she bought Odin. "After Trucker died, I realized that I needed something small, so that it would actually fit in my apartment and not be larger than me." Trucker had been…well, he was almost as big as a horse. She found him when he was a puppy, and hadn't expected him to grow so big. She had actually been able to house train him. Russell and Bear, on the other hand, just had to make sure they were walked at the right times. "I decided to buy the smallest thing I could think of, a Chihuahua. I like him, so far." She opened the book and started thumbing through it, scanning each page for anything useful. After a few minutes, she said, "I remember how much you hated me bringing animals home, but you never told me no."

"You went out and risked you life every night," Rupert said. "I couldn't begrudge you having animals around. Plus, I thought it was sweet that you wanted to rescue everything."

The police shrink once said that she felt the need to rescue animals because no one had been around to rescue her when she was fifteen. She hadn't told him that Rupert had rescued her, because that would have been too hard to explain. She supposed he was right, though. She even volunteered at the animal shelter when she wasn't at work usually. "Guess it was the slayer in me, wanting to save others," she said simply, not feeling like getting into a long discussion about her psychological make up.

"Slayers only have an instinct to kill," Rupert told her. "It's the person inside you that wants to help others."

She couldn't help but smile at that. Almost ten years apart and he still knew her so well. She quietly went back to her reading.


	5. Chapter 5 Choices, pt 1

**This chapter is based on the episode "Choices." I have to go from memory because my copy of Season 3 was lost from lending it out. If I have made a major flub (and I don't mean trite things like the color of clothing), feel free to message me and I'll try to correct it. **

**For this chapter, I took some dialogue from the actual episode. Sometimes, you have to admit when you can't do a better job. I'm a twenty-one year-old who writes for fun. I'm up against professional screenplay writers. Sometimes, they win. I can't improve on some dialogue. I do add my own actions and certain extra quips to certain scenes, however, to add my own touch. **

The next few days went by quickly. Danielle, being the natural night owl that she was, slept until at least eleven o'clock every day, so she missed Rupert leaving every morning for work. She didn't remember Rupert having a job when they lived in New York together, but she just figured that it was easier to explain why a thirty something didn't have a job as to explain why a forty-something didn't have a job.

Unfortunately, this left her with little to do until school was out of session. She had been told that she couldn't visit the school during the day because the principal, a man named Snyder, was a hard ass who didn't like Buffy, any of her friends, or Rupert. They didn't want to have him bother her as well, even though she insisted he wouldn't bother a cop. Once the day was over, however, she would walk to the high school. She and Rupert would sit in his office, watching Wesley train with Buffy.

One such afternoon the two of them watched as Wesley was practicing kicks with Buffy. He had his hands covered in padding, calling out certain types of kicks to her, and then analyzing her efforts. Buffy looked angrier with each blow she delivered. After one such strike, Buffy sent the pad covering Wesley hand flying across the room and into the library stacks. He seemed to call a time out, because he left to retrieve it, cradling his hand as he did so.

Rupert walked out of the office, and Danielle followed. "You shouldn't kick so hard that you send pads flying," Rupert said to her.

As if Buffy didn't hear him, she said, "I want to leave."

"Then go home for the day," Rupert said.

"No, I mean I want to leave Sunnydale," Buffy said. "I want to have a life."

Wesley came out of the stacks, holding the pad. "I don't understand," he said.

Danielle decided that this wasn't the time for an interjection on her part, and sat down on the table to watch.

"Well, I don't think I can talk any slower, Wes," Buffy said. "I want to leave."

Wesley looked confused. He set the pad down onto the table, near where Danielle was sitting. "What? Now?"

Buffy shook her head. "No, not now. After I graduate, you know, college?" She sat down at the table that Danielle was sitting on.

"But, you're a slayer," Wesley said. Danielle had to hide a snicker, wondering how he would react to her being as old of a slayer as she was.

"Yeah, I'm also a person," Buffy said. "You can't just define me by my Slayer-ness. That's ... something-ism."

"Maybe sexism," Danielle said. "It's definitely stereotyping."

Rupert looked at Buffy. "Buffy, I know we've talked about you going away..." Before he could finish, Buffy interrupted him.

"I got into Northwestern," Buffy said.

"The one in Chicago, or the one in Natchitoches, Louisiana," Danielle asked. When everyone looked at her, she asked, "What? Both are good, but one is highly more impressive than the other. I also thought that you were planning to go to UCSD."

"It's Chicago, and I was until I got this acceptance letter," Buffy said. "I only got it today. This is a great opportunity for me."

"That's wonderful news that you got into Northwestern, obviously the good one," Rupert said, smiling a little as he said it. "Good for you."

"Alright, everyone. Monsters, demons, world in peril?" Wesley said, looking more and more…perturbed by the second.

"I bet you they have all that stuff in Illinois," Buffy said.

"You cannot leave Sunnydale. By the power invested in me by the Council, I forbid it," Wesley said, folding his arms across his chest and looking as firm as he could, which wasn't much for a skinny man in glasses wearing a tweed suit.

"Yes, of course that'll settle it," Danielle said.

"You're not helping!" Wesley snapped. "There are many reasons as to why you can't leave Sunnydale." He started to count on his fingers. "Faith gone bad, and the Mayor's Ascension coming up…"

Buffy interrupted him again. "I know it's complicated. I'm aware that my graduation may be, among other things, posthumous, but..." she trailed off for a second, stopping to look up at Wesley. "What if I stop the Ascension? What if I capture Faith? If I do all of this, then my being here won't be as needed. Maybe you guys can even rehabilitate Faith. Maybe even Danielle can help."

"Why would Danielle be able to help?" Wesley asked, starting to look at Danielle suspiciously.

"Maybe because she might like talking to a former runaway who might understand her better than a British man in an impeccable suit," Danielle said. "No offense, it is a nice suit. Just hard to relate to."

Rupert jumped back in before Wesley could retort. "Buffy, it would be wonderful if we could do all of these things; however it is a very high goal to meet."

Buffy didn't seem to hear the last part of what Rupert said. "If I do all of that, then all you guys have to do is keep the run of the mill unholy forces at bay through mid-terms and I'll be back in time for Homecoming, and every school break after that," she said. She sighed and said, "Can we at least think about it?"

"You know a great way to speed things along for you?" Danielle asked. "You could try bringing the fight to him instead of waiting for your graduation to see whether or not if you can defeat him or he'll just eat you. Maybe if we can figure out what he's planning _exactly_, then maybe we stand a fighting chance of stopping it."

Everyone stared at her as if she had grown a second, drooling head. "Why do I get stares every time I suggest that we try to go on the offensive? I'm a cop. I can't stand around waiting for someone to commit a crime that will cost lives."

Buffy looked deep in thought herself. Suddenly, she said, "She's right. I'm tired of waiting for Mayor McSleaze to make his move while we sit on our hands counting down to Ascension Day. We need to move forward and not stay in one spot on the chessboard."

Wesley looked like he might have a stroke at the thought. "No. No! Much too reckless. We're at a distinct disadvantage. We don't know anything about the Mayor's Ascension..."

"And the best way to find something out is to actually do something instead of waiting for information to fall into our laps," Rupert interrupted. "Danielle, do you have any ideas as to what to do?"

"Yes, actually, I do," Danielle said. "What we need to do is follow the Mayor's henchmen around, since following the Mayor might be a bad idea all on its own."

"I still say that this whole plan is a bad idea," Wesley interjected. "This plan could get every one of us killed."

"Which is why not everyone is going," Danielle said. "I personally suggest that Buffy and I alone do the tailing."

"Why should you go?" Wesley asked.

Danielle turned to him and looked him straight in the eye. "Because I'm a cop, I have a gun, and you really have no authority to stop me," Danielle snapped, getting more and more tired of having to defend herself. "And if you make me mad enough, I'm sure I can have you arrested for impeding an investigation. I may be out of my precinct, but cops stick together, no matter what." Danielle crossed her arms across her chest. "Any more questions?" He gave no response. "Good. Buffy, I think that you and I should leave soon. You know his henchmen more than I would, so you know who to follow."

"Right, boss," Buffy said with a mock salute. When Wesley had his back turned for a moment, she then stuck her tongue out at him. Danielle had to leave the room to keep from laughing in his face.

Buffy soon followed. "Could you really get him arrested?" she asked when she stepped out of the library.

Danielle smiled. "Probably not, or at least it would be much more effort and paper work than I'm willing to put forward, but it shut him up quick, didn't it?" She laughed. "So, where are we going tonight?"

"I think that we're going to follow Faith, actually," Buffy said, changing from giggling, young Buffy to determined, Slayer Buffy. "I know that where her apartment is, and that she usually stays there for most of the day. If we're lucky, maybe we can catch her leaving. We need to hurry, though."

Danielle nodded in agreement, and then followed Buffy to Faith's apartment. As soon as the sun went down, Faith was out of her apartment and walking in a direction with a look of purpose on her face.

"She's pretty," Danielle said as they started to follow Faith from a long distance.

"Yeah, too bad she's a lunatic," Buffy said, leading the way. They watched as Faith stopped in front of a store, looking as if she was waiting on someone. After a few minutes, a limo arrived, and Faith stepped inside of it.

"Damn," Danielle cursed as the limo drove off. "Now we won't know where they're going."

"We can if we run fast enough," Buffy said, breaking into a run. Danielle groaned and started running after her. Luckily, the limo wasn't going very fast, maybe thirty miles an hour, but it was killer to run at that speed for more than a few seconds. When Danielle caught up with Buffy, the girl huffed, "I think they're heading for the airport!" She stopped, and Danielle nearly crashed into her. "I know a short cut. I think we can arrive just when they do." She was off again, cutting into a nearby alley.

"Goddamnit," Danielle wined, running after her again. "I'm too old to be chasing cars. I'm not a bloody dog."

After running for what felt like forever, at least to Danielle's lungs, they finally arrived at the airport to see the limo pulling up to a man holding a brief case.

"That case is cuffed to his wrist," Danielle muttered loud enough for Buffy to hear.

The airport was deserted at the moment, or at least the part they had pulled up to was. That may have been on purpose. Danielle and Buffy watched as a vampire stepped out of the driver's seat of the car, slamming the door behind him. They saw Faith step out of the back, now wearing a trench coat.

"Is he in the car?" The case guy asked. He looked nervous, as if he wanted to run at any moment.

"No, we'll take you to him," Faith said, opening the door for him, expecting him to step inside.

"The Mayor was supposed to be here in person with the money. Well, the price just went up. I don't like surprises," case guy said. Now he really looked nervous.

In response, Faith pulled a cross bow out of her coat and shot the man in the chest, through the heart. He didn't turn to dust, instead falling to the ground with a thud. "Surprise," she said softly, smiling.

Danielle had to stop herself from gasping when Faith shot the man. She hadn't expected that.

"You killed him!" The vampire snapped, looking exasperated. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"What are you, a narrator?" Faith retorted. She squatted down to the ground and started going through the man's jacket. "Where are the keys to the cuffs?"

"He may not have had any on him," the Vampire said. "Maybe the Mayor has them."

Danielle watched as Faith pulled a knife from her coat. "Is she going to pull a rabbit out of there next?" Buffy whispered.

Faith paused for a moment, seemingly listening to the night. Danielle worried that they had been heard for a second, but Faith then bent down to the now very dead case man.

The vampire looked at Faith. "That's not going to cut through steel."

"Doesn't need to," Faith said, bringing the knife down to the dead man's wrist. "It just needs to cut through bone."

Danielle had to hold back a gag while she watched Faith saw off the man's hand. She was used to seeing the aftermath of death and destruction, but it had been a long time since she saw anything like this. Faith picked up the brief case from the ground. "I'm going to walk from here. Grab the body and dump it." She started walking off in the direction back towards town.

As soon as she was out of sight, Buffy left the bush that they were hiding in and jumped the vampire, who was bending down to pick up the body. She pushed him against the car, her hand around his neck. While it wouldn't cut off airflow, it was still a good way to hold someone down. "What was in that case?" Buffy asked, punching him in the face.

"Why the hell would I tell you that?" the vampire asked.

Danielle sighed. "Because we can either make your death quick and painful or slow and far more painful. Your choice." Silence. "Alright, wrong choice."

Danielle pulled out a special made stake from her jacket, moved Buffy aside, and shoved it through the vampire's chest.

He screamed bloody murder, and then a look of shock came over his face when he realized that he didn't burst into a cloud of dust. "The stake itself is rock painted to look like wood, but I had small splinters of wood specially put in there for vampires who really piss me off. If I leave it in there long enough, you might turn into dust. I've never tried it before." Danielle kept a blank look on her face while she said all of this. Ten years as a cop had made her a little more ruthless.

In addition, vampires were soulless demons (with one notable exception that still scared the hell out of Danielle) who didn't deserve mercy. She was allowed to let out the inner bitch on them.

"Alright! I talk!" the vampire whimpered. "The Mayor wanted the Box of Gavrok for his Ascension. It has something to do with him turning into a big snake thing."

"Awesome," Danielle said, pulling the stake out. "Buffy, would you like to do the honors?"

Buffy quickly moved in and staked the vampire with a regular wooden stake. "Neat prop," she said, looking down at the stone stake still in Danielle's hand.

"You should see what I do with a shotgun," Danielle said.


	6. Chapter 6 Choices, pt 2

"The Box of Gavrok? What is that?" Willow asked. After receiving the information from the vampire driver, Buffy and Danielle returned to the library with their information.

"It houses some great demonic energy or something which His Honor needs on A-Day," Buffy answered. "Willow, did you get those maps that I wanted?"

"What maps?" Wesley asked. He was standing near the front desk, looking as perturbed as ever. Danielle was starting to think that the look was permanently etched on his face.

"Plans for City Hall," Willow answered. She set the maps that she was carrying onto the table. "They were in the Water and Power mainframe, so I found them pretty easily."

Rupert stared at the map for a few moments. "My best guess is that the box would be kept here," he said, pointing to a conference room on the top floor. "It will be kept under guard, of course."

Wesley walked over to look at the map. He then looked back up at Buffy. "Well, now, here's what I think we should do..." he started, but Buffy turned away and interrupted him.

"I figure we can enter through the skylight," Buffy said, pointing to the skylight on the roof. "I'll take Angel and Danielle with me, and the rest of you can wait here until we bring it back."

Xander, who was standing beside Willow, looked down at the map. "And there's a fire ladder on the east side of the building here," he said, pointing to the fire ladder on the map.

"Yes, yes, fine, but we still need to consider whether the Mayor..." Wesley tried to interject his thoughts, but he was interrupted again.

Danielle could easily see that he was respected very little here. _Maybe that's why he acts like a prick,_ she thought.

It was Rupert that cut him short that time. "It won't be enough to simply have possession of the box. We'll most likely need to destroy it magically as well."

Wesley put his hands up, motioning for everyone to quiet down. "Wait, we don't know what such a ritual could entail, or if it's even possible."

Wesley was ignored again. It was if he wasn't there. "I think the Breath of the Atropyx is standard for this sort of thing," Rupert said, picking out a book from a particular shelf. Danielle couldn't help but realize that he probably knew what was in every one of his books. "Fairly simple recipe. Xander, would you retrieve the ingredients?"

Danielle watched as Wesley attempted to read the book over Rupert's shoulders, but Rupert passed the book to Xander before he could get a look at it. "Sure, I'm ingredient getting guy. Better than donut guy any day."

"Alright, stop! I demand everyone STOP this instant! I'm in charge here and I say this is all moving much too fast. We need time to fully analyze the situation and devise a proper and strategic stratagem."

"Honestly, the plan sounds fine to me," Danielle interjected. She had been silent up to this point. "We go in, get the box, leave, and everyone's happy. Well, everyone except the Mayor, who will probably be really pissed…"

This time it was Wesley's turn to interpose. "The Mayor will most assuredly have supernatural safeguards protecting the box." Everyone was silent. "Oh, we forgot all about that, now didn't we?"

Danielle sighed. "Alright, good point. He would be the type to put a curse on it if anyone touches his precious box or something. He's like Gollum." Everyone stared at her. "What? I can't read a book every now and then?"

"Looks like a job for Wiccan girl," Buffy said. "Do you think you can do it from here, or do you need to go with us?"

Willow thought about it for a moment. "I need to go along."

"You into big-time danger?" Danielle asked.  
"I eat danger for breakfast," she said, giggling.

"But oddly enough, she panics in the face of breakfast foods," Xander joked. Danielle couldn't help but laugh.

"Fine, then let's get to work," Buffy said.

The plan seemed simple enough. The four of them, Angel, Buffy, Willow, and Danielle would go to the skylight of City Hall, Willow would perform her ritual, then Buffy would be lowered by Angel and Danielle into the room by a rope, she would grab the case, then they should all be out of there fairly quickly.

If everything went as planned.

Willow's ritual seemed to go fine. Danielle didn't understand any of it (she never did understand much about magic), but, after a few minutes of chanting and smelly incense, she smiled and said, "It's done."

Danielle and Angel slowly lowered Buffy through the skylight and toward the brief case. Everything seemed to be go well until an alarm went off. "Shit! We didn't think of regular security!" Danielle shouted, starting to pull the rope up. After a few inches, it got stuck.

"Damnit!" Angel snapped just as three vampires entered the room to a hanging Buffy. Angel jumped through the skylight, seemingly intending on defending Buffy.

"Guess that means I should go as well," Danielle mumbled and jumped down as well. The landing hurt like crazy on her ankles, but they weren't broken, so she could live with it. She watched as Angel cut Buffy down, then turned to start kicking a little vampire butt.

Danielle's part in the fight went fairly quick. A punch here, a kick there. Then, the vampire ran into the next room. Danielle sighed and chased after him, wondering why he would be chickening out so quickly.

Things were going ok until Danielle felt something slam into the back of her head, knocking her to the ground. She managed to fall on her back. She looked up, and saw Faith standing above her, with a baseball bat.

_Damn_, thought Danielle. _Didn't think that it would end this way._

Then everything went black.

It takes a lot to keep a slayer down, however. She woke up fairly quickly. The first thing she realized was that her head was throbbing. The second was that Faith was dragging her across the floor.

Danielle started to struggle, trying to pull her shirt from Faith's grip, but this only caused Faith to lift Danielle up and place a knife to her throat. "If you fight, if you scream, I cut your throat. Understand me?"

Well, that was brusque. "Understood."

Danielle noticed that they were still in the adjoining room to the Conference Room, where she had chased the vampire before being hit on the head. Faith had apparently been dragging Danielle back into the Conference Room, because that was where she led her.

Instead of Buffy and Angel fighting, she only saw a lone man standing there. For all appearances, he looked normal, if a little dorky. He was dressed very clean cut, with a perfectly ironed suit, perfectly styled hair, and just all around perfect, like OCD perfect.

"Well, this is very unfortunate. I just had this conference room redecorated, for Pete's sake. At taxpayers' expense," he said, sounding strangely chipper through it all, considering his special case wasn't there. That had to mean at least either Buffy or Angel got out with it. Danielle hoped that the others got away. "And, oh yeah…," The Mayor, since that was who it had to be, picked up a chair and smashed it against the wall in a fit of rage, his cheerful facade breaking. "They've got my box!"

"Hey, sir," Faith said, pushing Danielle forward while still holding the knife to her throat. "I found this one with them. Knocked her out while she wasn't looking." She pressed the knife a little closer. "Think we can keep her?"

The Mayor walked up to them, smiling again. "And who's your new friend, Faith?"

Faith shrugged. "Never seen her before in my life." Faith used her free hand to reach into Danielle's pocket to retrieve her wallet. She flipped it open. "Ooh, she's a cop. Not one from around here, though."

The Mayor took the wallet from Faith. "Danielle Smyth, NOPD," he said. "Well, hello Ms. Smyth. I'm Richard Wilkins III, mayor of Sunnydale. While I don't mind making new friends, I have to ask why you are here."

"Hired help," Danielle said, thinking quickly. "I'm a mercenary."

"Now we both know that's not true," the Mayor said, still smiling. Danielle thought his face might break from smiling so much. "No worries, though. We'll find out exactly who you are to the others soon enough. Faith, put her in a room downstairs, and put a guard there. I have a feeling that they'll be calling soon."

Faith grinned and dragged Danielle away. She led her down some stairs, and then shoved her into a room, locking the door behind her before Danielle had the chance to turn around.

"Fuck!" Danielle shouted, kicking the door. Then she turned and slid down the wall to sit down and think. She was in the hands of the enemy, weaponless, and locked in a room basically waiting to die or to be traded. She only hoped that the others wouldn't trade her. Getting the box was a big break for them, and here Danielle was, messing everything up.

After a few minutes of wallowing in self-pity, she stood up, resolved to get out of the room and out of City Hall on her own, without being traded or killed. After a few more kicks to the door, it burst open. She was already prepared to run when a vampire, obviously her guard, stepped through the door.

"Where do you think you're going, little lady?" the vampire asked her, taking a step toward her.

"Bathroom. You know girls. They have small bladders," Danielle babbled, looking around the room for a weapon, any weapon. The vampire took another step toward her with a hungry look on her face. "Hey, did you get permission from the Mayor to eat the hostage? You try it and you'll be in big trouble, mister."

Danielle spotted a small, wooden table in the middle of the room. "I only want a little taste. You smell a little different. Let's see what you taste like."

He tried to charge her, but Danielle spun out of the way, flipping the table over in the process. The vampire got in front of her again, punching her in the face. Now angry herself, she kicked him straight in his "personal area." While he was doubled over, she grabbed him by both arms and shoved him down onto one of the table legs, chest first. She was already walking away when he exploded into dust.

She snuck out of the room and started walking down the hall. She kept trying doors, hoping that one of them would lead out of the place. One room turned out to be an office with books in it. Danielle walked in, hoping maybe to find something that would be useful for Rupert, Buffy, and the rest of them.

The book on top of a pile looked promising enough. The title included the word "Ascension." She flipped it open, only to sigh with aggravation. It was written in another language, and she sucked with any language besides English. Angry, she tore out a number of pages, hoping that maybe they could translate them later. She shoved them into her pockets and shut the book. She was just about open another one when she heard from behind her, "Hey, I didn't know cops could read."


	7. Chapter 7 Choices, pt 3

Danielle took a deep breath to keep from getting angrier. "I'll have you know that I'm a detective, not a bloody beat cop." She turned around to face Faith, who was standing behind her in the doorway, blocking her escape.

"Anyone with brains, anyone who knew what was going to happen to her, would try to claw her way out of this place," Faith said, walking closer. "But you, you just can't stop Nancy Drew-ing, can you? None of you good guys can. Guess now you know too much and that kinda just naturally leads to killing."

Danielle groaned. "Faith, it doesn't have to be this way. The others would still take you back."

"What do you know?" Faith asked. "Oh wait, the Mayor told me something strange about your records. It seems that they stop around ten years ago. You know, as if you just appeared out of nowhere. Now why is that?"

"Don't have a clue," Danielle lied. "And what do I know? I know you. Not personally, but I know what you're like. I _was_ you, just less crazy. You know, I felt sorry for you. Now, I just think that you're fucking nuts."

Faith reared back and punched Danielle in the jaw. Danielle just stood there and took it, turning back to Faith after a second. "Can't take me down without a bat, can you kid? It's a lot easier being evil than being good, isn't it?"

Faith looked stunned for a moment, and then pulled out her knife. Danielle noticed that it was a fancy knife with intricate designs on it. It looked expensive, and like it was possibly a present. Killers don't buy knives like that for themselves. "Let's see if I can take you down with this."

She stepped up to Danielle, and, just as Danielle was getting ready to kick Faith in the face, she heard someone say, "Girls, I hope I don't have to separate you two. Faith, you can play with your new toy later. We got our call."

Faith continued to glare at Danielle. "Faith, don't make me repeat myself. We need her alive. She seems to be important enough that they're willing to give me my box back for her."

"Okay," Faith finally said, letting her arm fall, knife still in hand. "Now, be a good little girl and follow the Mayor so we can get the box back."

Danielle stood there for an extra second before turning to follow the Mayor. "You're friend Mr. Giles seemed especially shaky when he called to request a trade. I wonder why."

Danielle had to resist the urge to kick the Mayor in the ass and fleeing for her life. She knew she should, but she honestly knew that Faith would probably stab her in the back. Danielle didn't want to die, even if it meant giving up the box and possibly condemning hundreds or thousands to die on graduation day.

She hated herself for that. She was supposed to be willing to give up her life for the greater good, and she was shaking in her boots (metaphorically, of course) about the thought of dying. She supposed that coming back from the dead made her feel that way, getting that second chance and all.

They ushered her into a limo downstairs, and Danielle was a little pissed that her first ride in a limo was spoiled by being a hostage. The driver drove to the high school, where Faith led her by knifepoint to the cafeteria. Rupert, Buffy, Wesley, Xander, and Willow were already waiting inside of the cafeteria with the box.

"Well, this is exciting, isn't it?" the Mayor asked cheerfully. By now, Danielle was ready to slap that smile off his face. He chuckled, and then continued. "Clandestine meetings by dark of night. Exchange of prisoners. I just, I, I feel like we should all be wearing trench coats."

"Let her go," Rupert said. Even though it was dark, Danielle could see the look on his face. He looked angrier than she had ever seen him. That was scarier than death, right there.

"No. Not until the box is in my hands," the Mayor said. He then turned to Buffy. "So you're the little girl that's been causing me all this trouble. She's pretty, Angel. A little skinny. Still don't understand why it couldn't work out with you and my Faith. Guess you kind of just have strange taste in women."

"What can I say?" Angel asked, smiling a little. "I like them sane."

"Don't do this," Danielle said. She felt Faith jab the knife in her back a little bit harder. "There's got to be a better way than giving them back the box."

The Mayor smiled wider and looked back at Rupert. "She's a brave one. She's got a lot of inner strength in her." He paused for a moment. "If I don't get my box back, I'll have Faith open her up and we can see exactly what's on the inside of her. It's now or never, kids."

Rupert grabbed the box, which Buffy had been holding, and all but threw it at the Mayor. "Here's your bloody box," he hissed, grabbing Danielle by the wrist and pulling her back toward the others.

The Mayor giggled. "Such fire. Can't wait to be the one to stamp it out." He wrapped his arm protectively around the box as if it was a small child. "Well, I wish you kids the best, I really do. However, if you don't mind a bit of fatherly advice, I, uh, I-I just don't see much of a future for you two." He looked at Buffy, then Angel. "I don't sense a lasting relationship. And it's not just because I plan to kill you. You two have a bumpy road ahead."

Danielle rubbed the spot on her back where Faith had the knife dug in. She could feel a little wetness back there. The bitch had stabbed her hard enough to draw blood.

"I don't want to talk about this with you," Buffy snapped.

The Mayor tisked. "Gosh, you kids, you know. You don't like to think about the future. You don't like to make plans. Unless you want Faith to gut someone here like a sea bass, show a little respect for your elders."

"You're not my elder," Angel said. "I've got a lot of years on you."

The Mayor gently set the box down onto a table. "Yeah, and that's just one of the things you're going to have to deal with. You're immortal, and she's not. I married my Edna May in '03 and I was with her right until the end. Not a pretty picture. Wrinkled and senile and cursing me for my youth. Wasn't our happiest time. And let's not forget the fact that any moment of true happiness will turn you evil. I mean, come on. What kind of a life can you offer her? I don't see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She's a blossoming young girl and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it has passed her by. My Gosh! I think that's a little selfish. Is that what you came back from Hell for? Is that your greater purpose?"

Before someone could whip out a witty retort, a small, bald mad stomped into the room. "Nobody move! I knew you kids were up to something!"

"Get out of here, Snyder," Buffy said. Danielle looked to see that there were three policemen with him.

"You're not giving orders, young lady. I suppose you're going to tell me I won't find drugs in this box." He picked up the box from the table.

Faith begins to go after him with her knife. "Faith, wait!" Buffy shouted.

"Principal Snyder," the Mayor said. Snyder turned around, seeing both the Mayor and Faith with her knife. "I think we have a problem."

"Mr. Mayor," Snyder said, looking surprised. "I didn't know that you were here. I'm sorry to intrude…" He set the box back down onto another table.

"No, it's I who should apologize. Coming down here at night. What must you be thinking? But you see I just needed to ..." The Mayor started to explain himself, but stopped when he saw one of the policemen open the box. "Don't do that!"

It was too late. A giant spider leapt out of the box and onto the poor policeman's face, ripping it to shreds.

"Oh god," Wesley said, sounding disgusted.

It took all Danielle had in her not to bolt from the room. She absolutely hated spiders, and ones bigger than her head scared her to death. The spider quickly jumped off the now mutilated policeman and disappeared for a moment.

"Where did it go?" Xander asked.

"Get that door open!" Snyder shouted.

"No! You can't let that thing out of here!" Danielle shouted.

"Everyone shut up and listen," Buffy snapped. The spider, who had managed to crawl onto the ceiling, fell down onto the Mayor's face.

"Boss!" Faith shouted, reaching to pull the spider off the Mayor's face. The scratches on his face healed instantly. She threw it to the ground, stomping on it.

Danielle watched as a second one emerged from the box and jumped onto the wall. "I wouldn't leave that box open," the Mayor said. Danielle saw Buffy reach over and slam the box shut on a third spider, severing its legs.

Danielle turned back just in time to see Faith raise her knife, looking at Wesley. "Faith, no!" Wesley shouted, ducking. Faith threw her knife, nailing the second spider, which had been crawling behind Wesley, to the wall.

"Is that all of them?" Willow asked. She looked about as disgusted as Danielle felt at the moment.

"No, not at all," the Mayor said, reaching over and picking his box back up. "There are around fifty million of those little critters in that box. Would you like to see? Anyone else invulnerable in the room?" He paused for a moment, as if waiting to see if anyone would raise his or her hand. "Faith, let's go."

Faith started to leave after him, but turned to look back at her knife, which was still sticking in the wall. "Faith, now," the Mayor said. Faith quickly followed him out.

Danielle turned to Snyder, who was just standing there stunned. "Hey, you alive in there?" she asked him.

He snapped back to attention. "You. All of you. Why couldn't you be dealing drugs like normal people?" He stomped back out of the room, the two other police officers taking their fallen comrade with them. Danielle couldn't help but wonder how they would explain what happened to his face.

"Well, that went wonderfully," Wesley said, sighing.

"We did alright," Rupert said.

They all left and went back to the library. Danielle, after much grumbling, allowed Rupert to examine the wound on the back of her head from Faith's bat. "So, I found this book about the Ascension," she stated, reaching into her pockets, pulling out all the pages that she ripped out of the book. She had actually managed to get a handful of them. "I have no clue what they say, and for all I know they could be a table of contents, but maybe they're helpful."

Wesley took the pages from Danielle and read the first page over quickly. Obviously, he could read whatever language it was in. "Actually, these can be helpful. I'm glad that you were resourceful enough to find the Book of Ascension, although I wish that you had brought the whole book."

"Not enough room in my bra to sneak it out," Danielle snapped. "I almost got gutted for those pages, so please be happy with those."

"This is your night for suave, Danielle," Buffy said. "You should get kidnapped more often."

"My head can't handle any more kidnappings," she mumbled.

"I think that she had a concussion," Rupert said.

"I was hit with a bat by one very angry super girl," Danielle said.

"I'll take these pages home with me to translate." Wesley took one last look at Danielle and left the room.

"What's that on your back?" Rupert asked.

"Bitch stabbed me," Danielle said. Rupert left the room, hopefully to get a first aid kit.

Xander sat down beside Danielle, laying his head on the table so that she could see his face. "He was worried about you," he said. "Wesley said that we shouldn't trade, and everyone was fighting, and Giles just stood up and through a pot against a display case." He pointed to a display case that was now in pieces. "It didn't live through it."

"You shouldn't have traded," Danielle said, sitting up and propping her head up on her hand. "I would have gotten out of there eventually."

"In the shape you're in," Rupert said, walking back into the room from his office with a first aid kit, "you wouldn't have made it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rupert," Danielle said, smiling. She leaned forward enough in her seat so that Rupert could reach her back. She felt him push up the back of her shirt, and she winced and hissed in pain as she felt him apply antiseptic to the wound.

Buffy looked down at her tiny wristwatch. "It's late, so we should probably go." She looked at Xander and Willow. "Xander, want to give us a ride?"

Xander looked up at her. "Sure, let's get going." Him and Willow gathered their books, and followed Buffy out.

Danielle felt Rupert gently place a bandage on her back. "Hopefully that will be gone by tomorrow," she said, sitting up. "Because, right now, that thing stings like a bitch."

Rupert walked around the table and sat down across from her. "So I hear that you were worried about me," Danielle said, putting her elbows up on the table and propping her head up on her hand.

"Of course I was worried about you," Rupert said, looking away for a moment. "Did you expect that I wouldn't be concerned?"

"According to Xander, you killed your display case." Danielle pointed over to the now defunct display case. "It won't be displaying much anymore."

Rupert blushed a little. "Yes, I did lose my temper. I shouldn't have done that in front of everyone."

Danielle smiled at him. "I know I said that I wish you had left me there," she reached across the table and took his hand, "but I have to admit that I'm glad that I'm not there anymore."

Rupert smiled back at her. "I'm glad that you're not there anymore, either."

She was very glad that she wasn't stuck with the Mayor and Faith anymore. She had a feeling that they would win, and wasn't that what mattered?


	8. Chapter 8 Prom, pt 1

Danielle's wounds went away quickly. She thanked whoever was listening above her for slayer healing. The wound in her back went away the next day, and she stopped being dizzy after a day or two from the concussion from having a bat hit her upside-her-head.

All of the kids were excited about the Prom, which just reminded Danielle of all that she missed. Not because of being a slayer, but by running away from home. She had honestly never even worn something as fancy as a Prom dress. She wasn't even sure when the last time she wore a regular dress was. Being a detective, you didn't get to dress up much. Her wardrobe had gravitated to being more practical over the years, and the few clothes she owned while being the slayer leaned more towards "biker chic."

When she walked to the school one day after the regular session had let out, she found Buffy and Willow sitting in the library, talking about dresses.

"So, I think I found the right dress to wear to the Prom," Willow said. She looked very chipper today, but Danielle hadn't really seen a day when she hadn't looked a little perky. The girl had pep to spare.

"Ooh, really? Tell me all about it." Buffy leaned forward in her chair, getting closer to Willow, who was sitting across from her. Danielle was sitting at the head of the same table, enjoying listening to the girls wax on about dresses, even though she had no clue about most of what they were talking.

"Ok, it was blue, and it was short, but not too short." Willow motioned that it went to her knees.

"So, medium then," Danielle chipped in.

"Yeah, medium's a good word. It had this sort of fringy stuff on its arms." Willow reached up to her arms, wiggling her fingers down them, trying to simulate fringe.

Rupert picked that moment to walk back into the room from his office, where he had been looking through more books, trying to research the Ascension more. "What are we talking about? A demon?"

"No, a Prom dress that Willow was thinking about getting," Buffy replied, looking at him. "Can't you get your head out of the Hellmouth for once?"

"I'd be delighted to, but the day of the Mayor's Ascension is fast approaching," Rupert told her, sitting down at the table with the three of them, "and we don't have a clue as to what will happen."

"Let me think….the Mayor turns into a big, scary demon, and then he eats all of us in a fiery carnage that defies all explanation?" Danielle asked.

"Well, yes, but we're still unclear as to _exactly_ what will happen, as in specifics," Rupert said.

"Don't tell me that those pages that I stole were useless," Danielle growled. "I put my life on the line for those things."

"Actually, they're quite useful. They confirm our suspicions as to what the Ascension is. The Mayor will transform into a pure demon," Wesley said, walking into the room followed by Cordelia, whom Danielle couldn't figure out exactly _why _she hung around. "The trouble is that we don't know exactly what kind he's going to turn into."

"There are thousands of species," Buffy said. "He could turn into just about anything. Most likely something very large, though. Maybe something dragon-y." She turned to Rupert. "Giles, do you think he'll turn into a dragon? Do they even exist?"

"Yes, they exist, and it's possible but not likely," Rupert said.

"So, with everything going on, it's safe to say that we shouldn't waste our time on such trifling matters as a school social," Wesley said.

"That's too bad," Cordelia said, smiling at him. "I bet that you would look totally 007 in a tux." She sat down at the table as well. That only left one empty chair left.

"Except, of course, on the actual night, I will be aiding Mr. Giles in his chaperoning duties," Wesley said, looking more nervous than usual.

Suddenly it dawned on Danielle why Cordelia hung around, even though she didn't contribute anything: she and Wesley obviously had a thing for one another! "Well that explains a lot."

"Explains what?" Wesley looked at her expectantly.

"Did I say that out loud?" Suddenly everyone was looking at her. "It's nothing, don't worry about it. Sudden epiphany, everything's fine. Move along everyone, nothing to see here." She really had to learn to keep thoughts to herself.

"Anyways…." Buffy looked back at Willow. "We'll get you a dress. You know, we should check April Fools."

"Don't go there!" Cordelia exclaimed, startling everyone. "I shop there. You can't shop where I shop. That would make my clothes less than stellar if you wear the same thing."

"Xander's even dipping into his graduation road trip fund to procure himself a shiny new tux," Willow said.

"And I myself will be wearing pink taffeta as chenille would not go with my complexion. Can we please talk about the Ascension?" Rupert was looking very exasperated with all of the Prom talk.

Danielle burst into laughter thinking of Rupert dancing around a ballroom in a pink taffeta gown with a tiara on his head. Apparently, everyone else pictured the same thing and laughed as well. "Rupert, everyone understands. Miles to go before we sleep. However, especially if we're all going to vaporize or something on Graduation Day, everyone deserves a little prommy fun."

"Yeah, Giles. One night of glory, not to much to ask," Buffy included. "Let us have our one night of magic and all."

Rupert was still all grumbles about it, but there didn't seem to be much that he could do. The teens were intent on going, and, since he was already chaperoning, he couldn't do much to stop them. Danielle wondered what she would do with herself for the night. She figured that she could patrol in place of Buffy so that she didn't have to think about what lurked in the night and could concentrate on having a good time at her Prom.

Danielle spent the rest of the afternoon either watching Buffy train or listening to Willow and Buffy talk about dresses. Again, Danielle was feeling a little down because she had no way of relating.

After most of the others had left, she looked at Buffy, who was sitting at the table in the library doing her homework, and said, "You're very lucky, you know."

Buffy looked up, seemingly happy to have a distraction from what appeared to be Trigonometry, which may as well have been ancient Sumerian to Danielle. "What do you mean?"

"You're normal." That wasn't quite the way that Danielle had wanted to put it, but that's what popped out of her mouth.

Buffy laughed. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not normal. I'm all slayer-ed up and crazy powerful. The world of normal isn't really for me."

Danielle shook her head. "Yes, you're a slayer. However, you also have your group of friends, not just one but two watchers looking out for you and you're still in school. Yes, I know that school is a bother, but you get to experience things that I can't even fathom. I can't even remember the last time I was near a dress, much less something as fancy as a Prom dress. Quite frankly, I'm not too sure what goes on at a Prom. You're very lucky that you still get to experience the trials and tribulations of being a teen. I missed out on a lot of that."

Buffy seemed to pause for a moment, looking deep in thought. Finally, she smiled. "Yeah, I am lucky. I even have someone to take me to the Prom. Sure, he's a two hundred year old vampire, but he's still a hottie and he'll look delicious in a tux." She looked down at her math book and sighed, shutting it and putting it away in her backpack. "I've got to get on patrol."

"You want me to come with you?" Danielle asked.

"Nah, I've got this one covered. There's one thing I like about upcoming apocalypses: sometimes the daily activity in graveyards goes way down." Buffy stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "I guess the Mayor has all of the resident vampires on their best behavior."

"He probably doesn't want anyone mucking up his plans," Rupert said, coming out of his office. Danielle wondered how much of their conversation that he had heard. "I would be glad for small favors."

"Totally on the side of that." Buffy started to head for the door. "I'll be seeing you guys tomorrow. Giles, I'll call you in case I run across anything juicy."

Danielle watched as Buffy walked out the door, and then turned back to Rupert. Before she had the chance to say anything, he asked, "Would you….would you be averse to going out to dinner tonight?" He looked down while he said it, running his hands through his hair.

_Is he asking me out on a date?_ She felt hopeful, but at the same time kept trying to remind herself that that probably wasn't what was going on. "Um, sure. That sounds great." She stood up from the table, wiping her now sweaty hands on her jeans. "So, where are we going?"

"There's this little French restaurant in a corner of town. Does that sound good to you?" Rupert asked.

Actually, Danielle thought that all French food consisted of snails and frogs, with some wine thrown in to make it all go down easier.

And she was still willing to eat snails and frogs if this was really a date. "Sounds fantastic."

Rupert drove the two of them to a small restaurant in the corner of an alley. Actually, he had to park on the street and they had to walk through a few back allies to get to their destination. She thought about asking how many of this restaurant's customers were eaten on a weekly basis, but Danielle didn't feel the need to tempt fate tonight.

She followed him inside of the restaurant. The interior only served to confuse her more as to exactly what Rupert might be feeling and what she _should _be feeling. There were small tables with lit candles on them, and the room had only low lighting. When she sat down, she realized that the entire menu was in French.

After the maitre de took their order, Danielle leaned over the table and whispered, "Rupert, I can't read a word that this thing says. The only words in French I know are…well, shouldn't be said in mixed company."

Rupert smiled. "Would you like me to translate it for you?"

Danielle thought on that a moment then closed her menu. "You know, why don't you order for me instead? I'm sure you'll pick something good. Just remember, you have my taste buds in your hands."

When the maitre de returned, Rupert ordered the Tajine D'Agneau for himself, and Coquilles St. Jacques for her. "So, what the hell did you just order?" she asked when they were alone again.

"Well, I ordered a Moroccan lamb stew with cinnamon, cumin, coriander, ginger, Tomatoes, onions, dried apricots and garbanzo bean for myself, and scallops and small prawns cooked in a leek béchamel sauce topped with melted goat cheese for you. Is that alright?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure what all of that is, but I'm sure I'll like it just fine." At least it wasn't snails or frogs. She trusted Rupert enough to assume that he wouldn't order her anything too far out of the box of normal food.

They quickly fell into conversation, and the rest of the world fell by the wayside for Danielle while listening to Rupert. He told her about some of the more amusing anecdotes of his exploits with Buffy, including a recent incident in which she gained the ability to read the thoughts of others.

"She could read whatever other people were thinking?" Danielle asked, amazed. It was the power that many people wished for, after all.

"Yes, and I learned the hard way that, when you are trying to avoid thinking of something, it's the first thing that will pop into your mind." Rupert looked a little embarrassed when he said that.

Danielle grinned. "Did she find out some dirty little secret about you? Was it something too terrible to mention?" Danielle was more than a little curious about exactly what she found out.

"It's an incident that I wish I had wiped from my memory by the magic involved." He looked down for a second when he said that, and Danielle caught that he was incredibly embarrassed about it, so she didn't want to press anymore.

It was time for a subject change. "So, are you really not too thrilled about being a chaperone for the teenagers' prom? I can't imagine it being that bad."

Rupert sighed. "I understand the need for a night of normalcy, but…" he paused for a moment, "it's going to be dreadfully boring. I'll have to stand around for hours listening to awful pop music while watching teenagers try to dance with one another."

"And try to discretely grope one another. Don't forget about that," Danielle added, smiling.

Rupert laughed at her joke, and then looked at her for a moment before saying, "Would you like to come with me?"

Danielle stared blankly at him for a moment, taking a second to process the question. "Wait…what?"

"Come to the Prom with me. You've said yourself that you regret never having one. Now might be the only chance you ever get to go to one. It's never too late if you have a second chance." Rupert reached across the table and took her hand in his. "Come with me to the Prom, Danielle."

Danielle smiled at him. "Of course I'll accompany you to the Prom."


	9. Chapter 9 Prom, pt 2

"Ohmigod, it's so terrible," Danielle whispered, looking at the hideous creature. "Is it supposed to look like that?"

"I can't believe what color it is." Buffy appeared to be a little ill at the sight. "I didn't think it would be that….gross."

"Shall I get you something else then?" The salesperson asked. They were shopping for dresses in one of the dress shops in town, and Danielle had tried on a lime green number, which managed to turn her skin a sickly yellow color.

"Yes, let me just go and change," Danielle walked back into the dressing room to remove the monstrosity, passing it back under the door to the salesperson. Now, with less than a week until the Prom, Danielle had asked Buffy to accompany her dress shopping, since she knew as much about dresses as she knew about vector calculus. So far, Danielle was sure that she had tried on two dozen or so dresses, each one more terrible than the last. Most of them were made for girls closer to Buffy's age than her own, and thus looked ridiculous on Danielle.

"Hey, I think I found one!" Buffy shouted from across the store. Danielle heard running toward her dressing room, and watched as Buffy passed her another dress under the door.

"It's almost down to my navel! I can't wear this!" Danielle yelled through the door, shivering in her underwear. "Damn this air conditioning," she mumbled under her breath.

"Just try it on! If you really hate it, we'll pick something else!" Buffy replied. She didn't seem to be budging so, with a sigh, Danielle began to put the dress on.

Danielle would never have picked this dress out herself. It was a red halter dress, with a neckline that went down in a "V" almost to her belly button, showing all of the small cleavage that she had. It seemed to have some kind of wiring or boning in the middle to keep its shape, going straight down to her feet.

"Buffy, I'm really not sure about this," Danielle said nervously. "I'm pretty sure that I've never shown this much skin in my life."

"The point of Prom is to dress up in ways that you would never do in day to day life. Now, if you don't come out here and at least let me look at you, I'm going to tear the door down." Buffy sounded as if she was getting impatient enough to rip the door off its hinges.

With another sigh, Danielle unlocked the door and stepped out so that Buffy could see her. Buffy's mouth dropped when she saw Danielle. "Wow, who would have known that you could be a total babe?"

"Um….was that a compliment?" Did she just call her ugly or something?

"Well, you're obviously pretty, but I totally didn't realize that you were hiding an inner sex kitten under all those men's shirts, that's all." Buffy's explanation sounded right.

"Well, at least I'm not a complete troglodyte," Danielle huffed. "Show me the mirror. Let me see this inner 'sex kitten' that you speak of, because I have never met her." Danielle walked up to the full-length mirror, looking into it, and said, "Turn the mirror my way, because it has to be pointed at someone else."

"No, silly, that's you!" Buffy exclaimed, giggling. She stepped away from the mirror so that Danielle was standing alone in front of it. "I told you: total sex kitten."

Danielle had to admit, that this dress did look very good on her. Since she had never been "blessed" with an overabundance of a chest, the plunging neckline wasn't completely obscene or ugly. Being a slayer plus being a cop all of these years had kept her in good shape, so her arms looked toned, which was good since the dress had no sleeves. The red color even set nicely with her pale skin and brown hair.

"You totally have to get that dress. Giles will flip when he sees you in it, and don't try and deny it, because I have seen the way you two look at each other and I'm not quite the dumb blond people think I am." Buffy crossed her arms over her chest with a determined look that it was just impossible to lie to.

"And how can I lie to a face like that?" Danielle asked, smiling. "I hope you're right, though. I'm pretty much in your hands for this."

"Don't worry," Buffy said, "because this is totally my thing. Can we get this dress wrapped up or something?"

They got the dress wrapped up and quickly purchased. It took a moment for Danielle to recover from the three-hundred dollar price tag ("I'm on a cop's salary!"), but the dress was purchased and taken back to Rupert's home. She then quickly hid it in the closet, since Buffy demanded that he not see it until he got to see it on her. Danielle had only thought that this was necessary with a Bride's dress, but Buffy insisted, so she went along.

Unfortunately, nothing can ever go smoothly in Sunnydale. Danielle received a call from Buffy at the school fairly early the next day, asking her to go ahead and come up. There had been an attack on a student by a demon in broad daylight while Buffy and Danielle had been out dress shopping the day before, and, somehow, they had gotten a hold of the security tape from "April Fools," another dress shop in the area.

When Danielle arrived at the school library, it was around lunchtime. "This entire town has a large case of Murphy's Law," she said as soon as she walked inside. All of the kids were sitting around the tables: Buffy, Willow, Oz, Xander, and even Cordelia. Wesley was standing by a television that had been set up so that they could watch the tape, and Rupert was sitting at the table with the kids.

"Welcome to Sunnydale, population dropping constantly," Xander cracked. "So, now that everyone's here, let's watch the carnage, shall we? I forgot the popcorn, but I think we can manage."

Wesley sighed and turned on the tape. The silent image popped up of Xander and Cordelia in the store, looking as if they were arguing, which, as far as Danielle had seen, seemed to be the usual for them. Suddenly, a large, dog-like demon burst through the window, running right past Xander and attacking a young man wearing a tuxedo. All of a sudden, it stops and runs back through the broken window.

"Stop right there. See, it looks like it forgot to put a quarter in the parking meter or something," Xander said, pointing at the screen. Wesley paused the video in order to stop the tape.

"You know the part that totally weirded me out?" Cordelia asked.

"Other than a giant demon thing burst through the window of a business establishment?" Danielle asked her quizzically.

Cordelia went on as if Danielle hadn't said anything. "That thing had good taste. I mean he pushed Xander and went right for the formal wear." When everyone stared at her blankly, she continued. "I'm serious. Look at the icky Hawaiian shirt Xander is wearing." She pointed to the screen to Xander. "Now look at the kid in the suit." She pointed to the unfortunate young man. "He had very clean lines. Well, until he was shredded anyway."

"I know what that is!" Wesley said, sounding excited. He ran into the office for a moment, coming back out with a book opened to a page that showed a similar creature with a description beside it. "It's a demon dog. They're summoned to do someone's bidding. Now we just need to figure out who summoned them, and why he or she seems to be training it to attack people in formal wear."

"There's a guy standing outside of the store looking in," Danielle said, pointing to a teenager on the screen. "He looks awfully calm for someone watching a lot of carnage."

"I know that kid," Oz said, looking at the TV screen. "That's Tucker Wells. He's in my chem. lab."

"Let me guess," Wesley said. "He was quiet, kept to himself, but always seemed like a nice young man."

"Well, he never seemed like the murderous type, anyway," Oz said. "Something must have happened to him."

"Considering what he did, it had better of been a big something," Danielle said. "Even then, I don't know if that would cover this."

"It wouldn't." Buffy stood up and turned off the tape. "This isn't fair. This might be the last time that any of us get to do anything fun and normal…well, forever maybe." She crossed her arms and started to pace the room. "Everyone in here deserves to have a fun, normal night, and we're going to have it, no matter who I have to take out."

Danielle honestly had the urge to cheer for a moment. Buffy was certainly good at rallying the troops. "So, what do you want us to do, oh fearless leader?" she asked without a hint of irony.

"I want all of you to have a good time at the dance," Buffy said. She held her hand up to stop the storm of protests that were about to come from everyone in the room. "This is something that I can take care of myself. It won't take long. Now, what we need to do is find out exactly where this Tucker lives, so I can take out his demon dog foot soldiers before he goes and pulls a Carrie or something. Willow, think you can find his address?"

"Sure thing, Buffy." Willow stood up and walked over to one of the computer terminals and began typing away faster than Danielle could keep up. Danielle herself could barely type out an email on one of those things, and now this girl a decade her junior was putting her to shame on one.

Danielle walked over to see at what Willow was looking at exactly. She noticed that she had the school's personal files pulled up. "Are you supposed to have access to those things?" When Willow looked up and shook her head, Danielle just covered her eyes and said, "Right, didn't see anything, couldn't have stopped you."

"Welcome to my world," Giles said, smiling.

"Found it!" Willow shouted proudly, promptly printing out a copy.

"That's my little hacker," Oz said, patting her on the head.

"Okay, everyone needs to go home and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to go and deal with Tucker. Everyone else, I demand you have a good time at the Prom for me until I can get there to enjoy it myself."

The actual plan was for Buffy to go to Tucker's home, along with Angel, and take care of the demon dog problem. Everyone else would be at the Prom, with someone monitoring the payphone. If backup was needed, Buffy would call the school on her cell phone and get people to come.

The next day was Saturday, the day of the dance. Buffy had scheduled Danielle an entire day of beautification. According to Buffy, Danielle had to wear her hair different than normal, which meant up in some fancy hair style, Danielle's nails were 'atrocious and filthy,' and she was in dire need of a pedicure. Danielle wasn't even too clear on what a pedicure was. She only knew that it had something to do with her feet. Danielle kept repeating that no one would see her feet being as they would be encased in the hellish invention known as high heels (which she still wasn't sure she could walk in, much less dance), but Buffy would hear none of it.

After being pampered more than any one human being was meant to be pampered outside of the ancient Egyptian royal family, it was near time for Danielle to go to the dance. She had wanted to go early with Rupert, since he had to arrive early because he was a chaperone, but, since her hair and make-up appointments ran late, she was running late. After finishing putting on her dress (which was a near ten-minute ordeal of making sure nothing was hanging out of the front or back of the dress), she was just getting ready to call a taxi when she heard the door open downstairs.

Danielle stuck her head out of the guest bedroom that she was staying in, and became quickly relieved that it was only Rupert letting himself back in. "I thought that you had to be there early," she said, more than a little stunned at the sight of Rupert in a tuxedo. She had never had the chance to see him so dressed up while she was with him in the past, and now she was very sorry for that.

"I wouldn't be a proper gentleman if I allowed my date to arrive in a taxi, now would I?" Rupert asked, smiling up at her. He stared at her for a moment. "You know, I don't believe that I've ever seen you in make-up before."

"And it'll never happen again. This stuff feels odd on my face. Have you heard anything from Buffy yet?" She continued to hide behind the door, feeling very self-conscious at the moment, although she wasn't sure why.

"Neither she nor Angel has called, so I can only take that as good news," Rupert said. Danielle knew that neither one of them wanted to think of the alternative. He walked up the stairs to stand outside of the door that Danielle was hanging out of. "Now, are you going to come out from behind the door or am I going to have to come up there and get you?"

Damn, he had figured out her ruse of hiding. She was tempted to ask 'is that a promise,' but decided against it. After making a last minute check to make sure everything was in place (double-sided tape or not, she kept feeling nearly exposed), she finally stepped out from behind the door. He smiled at her, holding out his hand to lead her down the stairs.

As he was leading her down the stairs, she stumbled over her own feet about half-way down. She would have plummeted down the steps if Rupert hadn't been there. He caught her, saving her from that fate.

She gave a nervous laugh. "Damn heels," she said with a smile, although she kind of felt like crawling under a bed and staying there until the next Apocalypse killed them all. She probably wouldn't even have that long to wait.

Rupert seemed to sense her embarrassment. "Would it help if I told you that you look beautiful tonight?" he asked her.

Danielle looked down, hoping to hide that she was turning the same shade of red as her face. "Actually, that does help a lot. Let's go before I accidentally kill myself." Danielle now didn't care what Buffy had told her, but she was ditching these heels the first chance that she had.

They left the apartment and made haste to the school. The dance had only just started, but Danielle could already hear lots of kids in the gymnasium. She couldn't help but feel giddy at the thought of going inside and dancing. Just before they got to the gym, they had to walk by the library. Danielle heard the phone start to ring inside of the library. Danielle and Rupert looked at one another, both realizing that something had probably gone wrong.

"We should probably answer that," Danielle said after a moment. Rupert nodded, walking inside of the library. Danielle followed him. He answered the phone and talked to the person on the other line for a few minutes.

When he hung up, he looked over at Danielle and said, "Buffy and Angel got to Tucker's home, but he has already released three of those hell hounds. They are heading straight for the high school."

Danielle sighed. "A slayer's work is never really done, is it?" She walked over to the caged off area, knowing that was where Rupert kept a stash of weapons. "Do you have a crossbow?"

"A crossbow?" Rupert sounded surprised. "I didn't know you knew how to use a crossbow."

"I know how, and I don't want to get anything on this dress," Danielle said, finding the crossbow and a sufficient amount of bolts. "Do you realize how much these silly things are? I think I spent half a pay check on the dress alone."

Rupert retrieved a sword from his arsenal. "Well, I believe that it was a good investment," Rupert said. "You really do look stunning."

Danielle looked down at the floor, blushing again. She was much better with dealing with crossbows than dealing with compliments.

Rupert cleared his throat. "Yes, well we should probably get to the front of the school." She looked up and saw that he was blushing a little, too.

She smiled at him and led the way to the front of the school. They got there just in time, since the first thing that Danielle saw was three beasts running down the street toward the school entrance, with Buffy and Angel following behind them.

Danielle took careful aim with the crossbow, letting a bolt fly and hitting the leading devil dog in the head, dropping him instantly. Buffy looked up and Danielle nodded to her. Danielle realized that she had to be an interesting sight, wearing a formal dress and shooting a crossbow at a demon.

Buffy quickly caught up with the second demon, pummeling it and finally snapping its neck. Danielle fired off her next shot, hitting the third one in the leg. She cursed, looking down to refill the crossbow.

"Look out!" Danielle looked up at Buffy's shout to see the final demon, the one that she had just shot in the leg, closing in quickly on her. It jumped and lunged at her. She felt the panic rising up in her, a scream bubbling on her lips as she was imagining being torn to shreds by the long claws that the demon was sporting.

She felt someone grab her by the waist. She looked and saw that it was Rupert, who, at the same time, was swinging down with the sword in his other hand, decapitating the demon in one sweep of the sword. Luckily, the demon had the courtesy to bleed in the direction away from them, so as not to stain their very expensive clothes.

Buffy and Angel ran up to them. "Wow, that was pretty intense," Danielle said, momentarily stunned. She looked up at Rupert. "I definitely owe you a dance for that."

"You ok?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah….yeah, I'm ok." She looked at Buffy. "That was pretty bad ass, snapping that other things neck like that."

"Yeah, it was pretty cool wasn't it?" Buffy beamed.

"Don't encourage her. Now I'll never hear the end of it." Angel groaned playfully. "You guys should go ahead inside. We'll clean these guys up. We can't just leave them out and around."

"Are you coming in later?" Rupert asked.

"Yeah. We've got out outfits stored away in Giles's office," Buffy said. "Now go inside and have fun, you two crazy kids."

Danielle and Rupert went back inside and they walked into the gymnasium, after a quick detour to the library to return the weapons, to be cleaned later. Danielle couldn't help but marvel at the balloon archway. "I can't believe that they went through so much trouble decorating this place." She looked around the gym, noticing the other kids grouped together. When they saw her and Rupert, they hurried over to them. Danielle was amazed at how different they all looked in their formal wear.

"Is everything ok?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, are we about to be invaded by the demon pound?" Xander asked.

Danielle shook her head. "The devil dogs are history. How's the Prom so far?"

"Strangely affecting. I got all teary eyed when they played 'We Are Family'," Oz said. Danielle just stared at him, confused for a moment.

Willow seemed to catch her confusion. "Everything's perfect. Where's Buffy and Angel?"

"They'll be in here shortly. They're cleaning up," Rupert said. "Now, go off and enjoy everything. Make this night count."

All of the kids dispersed. Just as Danielle was turning to face Rupert, she heard Xander ask, "How exactly did the G-man land a babe like Ms. Smyth, anyway?"

"Maybe she likes the sexy librarian type," Danielle heard Xander's date, a girl whom she had never met before, say.

Danielle started laughing, unable to contain it anymore.

"What's so funny?" Rupert asked, unable to hear them talking over the din of the music.

Danielle stopped laughing and smiled. "I'm not sure that you would believe me if I told you." She was certain he would freak if she told him about the 'sexy librarian' part. "You would be surprised what people say when they think you can't hear them. Don't worry, though. Nothing was bad."

He just looked at her for a moment, looking confused. Before he could say anything else, Wesley, who was also chaperoning, walked up to them. "Well, I must say that this is all rather odd to me."

"It's not just you. I've never been to one of these myself," Danielle told him.

"Oh yes. At an all-male preparatory they didn't go in for this sort of thing," Rupert said.

"You went to an all boys school?" Danielle honestly hadn't thought that those still existed.

"He went to the Watcher's Academy," Rupert told her.

Danielle looked shocked. "There's an academy?" She pictured an assembly line, putting watchers in tweed and shipping them out in boxes or something.

"Yes, there is. But no, of course not," Wesley told them. "Unless you count the nights you made the lower classmen get up as girls and watched them …" he trailed off when he saw the look that both Danielle and Rupert were giving him. "Dip is tasty, isn't it?" He was carrying a little plate with several snack foods from the food table on it.

"Yeah, dip is great," Danielle said, trying not to laugh again. Wesley looked over her shoulder, towards the gym entrance, and started to have a coughing fit.

Wesley cleared his through. "Sauce is hot." Danielle finally turned to see what he was staring so intently at. Cordelia was standing in the doorway, looking very beautiful in her green gown. "Very hot."

Danielle couldn't stop herself from laughing now. Wesley quickly excused himself, heading in Cordelia's direction. "Who would have thought that Mr. By-The-Book-Watcher would have the hots for Cordelia?" Danielle asked.

"It happens more than you think," Rupert said, Danielle turned to look at him to ask him what he meant, but the music suddenly cut away. Everyone looked toward the stage, and Danielle followed suit. It was apparently now time for the class awards, something else that Danielle wasn't familiar with. The students voted for awards to give to different students, like Class Clown, Most Beautiful, and such. Danielle patiently waited through the awards, politely clapping for everyone who won. Xander seemed to become angry over who won Class Clown. He had been expecting to win it himself.

Buffy and Angel had walked in during the awards. They walked up beside Danielle and Rupert, also politely clapping when someone won something. They also seemed to be waiting for it to be over with.

Danielle watched as a short young man walked up to the microphone, lowering it so that he could speak into it. "Buffy Summers? Is Buffy Summers here?"

Danielle looked over at Buffy, just as someone turned to spotlight on her. Buffy looked genuinely shocked. The young man continued. "This is actually a new category. First time ever. I guess there were a lot of write-in ballots, and, um, the prom committee asked me to read this." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolding it to read from it. "We're not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you, but that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here."

Several kids shouted responses from the audience. "Zombies!" "Hyena people!" "Snyder!" Everyone laughed at the mention of the principal.

"I have got to hear these stories," Danielle whispered to Rupert.

"But, whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you, or helped by you at one time or another. We're proud to say that the Class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history." He paused for the cheers and applauses from the crowd. Danielle couldn't help but cheer herself. "And we know at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class, offers its thanks, and gives you, uh, this." He produced a multicolored, glittery, miniature umbrella with a small metal plaque attached to it. "It's from all of us, and it has written here, 'Buffy Summers, Class Protector'." Everyone started cheering again as Buffy walked slowly to the stage, gracefully accepting her award. Danielle found it especially moving. She understood that Buffy felt like she was never appreciated. Being a slayer was a thankless destiny, but she had finally received some recognition.

As she descended down from the stage, she glowed with pride. She was swarmed by her friends and schoolmates, all congratulating her on her award. The music started back again, and many of the students started to dance themselves.

Wesley came up to Rupert, looking as if he wanted to ask a very important question. "Mr. Giles. I'd like your opinion. While the last thing I want to do is muddle bad behavior in front of impressionable youth, I wonder if asking Miss Chase to dance would..."

"For God's sake, man, she's eighteen," Rupert said, sounding exasperated with the whole ordeal. "You also have the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. Just have at it, would you, and stop fluttering about." Wesley quickly muttered his thanks and fluttered off, most likely to follow through with asking Cordelia for a dance.

"How much maturity does a blueberry scone have?" Danielle asked him, curious to the answer.

"Not much at all." Rupert turned to her. "I believe you owe me a dance, Danielle."

"Well, I have to thank my knight in a shiny tux, now don't I?" She let him lead her out to the dance floor. Danielle looked around and saw that everyone that she knew here was dancing as well: Xander, Willow, Oz, Cordelia, Wesley, and even Buffy and Angel were dancing now that Angel had pulled her away from the adoring crowd.

She smiled when she realized what song it was. "You know, Guns and Roses did this song much better." The song was "Wild Horses," but this version had a female singer. "That song came out when I was in high school. It's amazing to realize how old you really are sometimes."

"Are we really that old?" Rupert asked her, smiling.

"Nah, we're not old." Danielle looked up at him. "You do realize that you probably saved my life tonight, right? I don't know how to thank you enough for that."

"Well, maybe another date would be a start." Rupert looked at her hopefully.

"I think I could live with those terms," Danielle replied, smiling.


	10. Chapter 10 Graduation Day, pt 1

It had only been about a week since Prom, and things were quiet. Danielle now understood the expression, 'the quiet before the storm,' very well. She had been patrolling with Buffy every night, and they had been running into a big, fat nothing. The only explanation was that the Mayor was having everyone stay inside and play nice until the day of his Ascension. Danielle was starting to get antsy, and she could tell that Buffy was feeling it a little bit as well.

At least Buffy had the distraction of finals. All Danielle had were her thoughts, which were almost constantly on Rupert now, when she wasn't discussing plans for graduation. They had even managed another date, but so far, he hadn't even tried to kiss her yet. Was he just trying to be a gentleman, or did he not quite feel the same way? Danielle was just finding all of this so confusing. Life was ok, though. It could certainly be a lot worse, although it was likely to get that way soon enough.

Danielle, having given up on staying at Rupert's all throughout the day, was sitting in the library, reading another book on the Ascension, and thinking that her head was going to explode. Finally, with a loud, exaggerated sigh, she slammed her head down into the book. "My eyes are going all blurry."

Rupert, who had actually been doing librarian work of some sort at the moment, came over to her. "Is everything ok?" He sat down in a chair beside her at the table.

"I'm almost wishing that the damn Ascension was today just so that we can die and get it over with." Sure, it was a defeatist spirit, but if she had to read one more book that was more poetry than fact, she was going to throw herself from the top of the school building.

"You don't really mean that, do you?" Rupert asked her.

She finally sat up and looked at him. "Of course I don't mean that. I'm just tired of reading books that I have no understanding of, even if they're in perfect Middle English, which may as well be Greek to me."

Rupert reached over and shut the book, and then pulled it away from Danielle. "I think it's time to take a break."

"Are you sure? Do you think we even can right now?" Danielle asked him. She knew that, with graduation just a few days away, time was of the essence.

"If we get too frustrated with this, we may just forget exactly what we're trying to save." Before Danielle had the chance to ask him exactly what he meant, Buffy, Xander and Willow breezed into the room.

"Oh God, guess who is the commencement speaker at our graduation?" Buffy said as she sat down at the table. "It's the mayor. He's going to go to town on all of us! We're like, his buffet!"

"Of course he's the commencement speaker. Where else that day would a lot of people be gathered together?" Danielle sighed as she said that. Her eyes were burning a little from reading so much, but there could only be more ahead, even though they had found next to nothing about anything in all of these books.

"Lends credence to my whole "I'm gonna die" theorem, doesn't it?" Xander asked.

"You and I both, kid." Danielle was getting more and more pessimistic about this by the minute. Things just weren't looking good, in her opinion. How were they supposed to stop a demon if they couldn't even figure out what demon he was going to turn into?

"Come on, guys, we can do this," Buffy stated. "If you keep thinking like that, then we may not succeed." Danielle looked around at Willow, Xander, and Rupert. She could at least see that Xander was feeling the same way that she was. She just knew that, if she had to deal with this day in and day out, then she'd crack, quick. How do they stay so…chipper?

Xander just nodded. "Sure, I'll try to remember that, while I'm being eaten by scary super-mayor!"

Rupert finally stood up. "Alright, that's enough. Everyone needs to go home. We don't seem to be accomplishing any more here today." He walked around the table. "We only have two more days until graduation, and, with the Mayor being the commencement speaker, we will have to think of ways to prepare."

Everyone slowly scattered, with only Buffy left behind, along with Danielle and Rupert. "Sorry to be so down, guys, it's just the realist inside of me screaming, 'we're gonna die,' who's voice is just getting louder and louder."

"We're all feeling it, Danielle," Buffy said, sitting down at the table. "We've got two days until graduation, and, other than large, we have no idea exactly what the Mayor is going to turn into."

"Maybe it'll be a dragon," Danielle suggested.

"I certainly hope not. I would rather not think that we need to add 'flying' to our list of what the newly powered Mayor could do." Rupert sat down in an empty chair between the two chairs that were occupied by Buffy and Danielle. "I think that large and with gigantic teeth is enough without flying."

"And breathing fire," Buffy added. "Don't forget about the breathing fire part. That's very important."

"Alright, there's another prayer to add to my growing list. 'Dear gods, please don't let the Mayor turn into a dragon, for he will fly around and breathe fire at us, which is a terrible combination of badness.'" Danielle rubbed her eyes again. She wasn't sure when the last time was that she had gotten a good night's sleep. "If we weren't all going to be attacked in two days, I would say that we need a night off."

"You're not exactly wrong." When Danielle and Buffy looked at Rupert as if he had grown a second head, he explained, "Everyone else has already been sent home, there is no supernatural activity going on in the graveyards or elsewhere. Buffy, go home and get a full night's sleep."

"Well," Buffy started, standing up from her chair, "I don't need to be told twice." She quickly ran out of the room.

"I think she thought that you would take it back," Danielle said, commenting on how fast Buffy ran out of the room. "So, what are we going to do now, Rupert? I'm not sure if I can handle any more research for today."

"No, I meant a night off for everyone, including us." He reached over and pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "You do realize that you're incredibly too tense, do you not?"

"Sorry Mr. We-Have-An-Apocalypse-At-Least-Once-A-Year. I'm from the city of velvet shirts and blood roses. We don't really get your level of supernatural activity." She sighed, turning her chair so that she was facing him. "I don't know if I could handle this every day. I think I might snap."

"I'm sure that you would handle it just fine." Rupert turned so that they were now completely facing one another. "It just takes a little getting used to." He reached over and took both of her hands in his. "I have an idea. Why don't we…"

He didn't get to finish whatever he was going to suggest, because Buffy suddenly came rushing back into the room, a little out of breath. Danielle turned and glared at her. "What happened to your night off?"

Danielle stopped glaring when she saw that Buffy was holding a newspaper in her hand. "I stopped…to get a newspaper…on my way home," Buffy said, trying to catch her breath. Danielle didn't think that Buffy was really the newspaper reading type, but decided not to mention that right now. "I think Faith…" Instead of trying to continue, she held up the paper, which read the headline, PROFESSOR FOUND MURDERED.

Rupert took the paper from her and read it over. "Are you sure? Could Faith do this?" Danielle got closer so that she could see the picture on the front page, and then kind of wished that she hadn't. This town didn't seem to have a problem with showing gory photos on the front page.

Buffy nodded, a grim look on her face. "It's one of her pieces. I recognize the brush work."

"She's uh…she's quite the little budding artist, then, isn't she?" Danielle asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Rupert started reading the first few lines of the paper out loud. "Mr. Wirth, a professor of geology visiting the local university, was brutally stabbed in his apartment late last night." He looked back up at Buffy. "There's nothing here that bellows motive."

"Random killing, perhaps? Fit of rage?" Danielle asked. The girl did seem the type. "Everybody does seem to be going crazy, lately. Faith has a head start, so her going a little wild wouldn't be out of the question."

"That doesn't sound right," Buffy said, shaking her head. "I think that it's more like wrapping up loose ends."

"The Mayor wanted the good professor out of the way," Rupert replied.

"Which leads to the question of 'how come?'" Danielle stood up and walked over to Buffy. "I'm going to destroy an entire city, but I'm going to kill harmless Lester first?"

"Lester had to of known something," Buffy retorted. "We need to know what he knew, too. I say we go and seek what the Mayor is trying to hide."

"You should go out tonight and take a look over the professor's apartment." Rupert stood up with a sigh. Danielle could tell that he was as disappointed that something had interrupted their night as she was. "I'll start calling the others. If there is anything of note, come back and inform us."

"Do you think someone should go with her? In case Faith is lying in wait?" Danielle asked. She figured that she could go along with Buffy. If anything can take down a Slayer, it's two other Slayers.

"I don't think she'll show," Buffy said with a wave of her hand. "Been there, killed that. She's not much for follow-up. Still, I'll give Angel a call, just in case." Then she was out the door, mouthing a quick 'sorry' in Danielle's direction, seemingly noticing that, yes, she did interrupt a 'moment' between the two of them, and with bad news, no less.

As if Buffy coming in wasn't enough, Xander nearly ran into her while on his way in, with another girl in tow. Danielle recognized her as his date to the Prom. "Why on earth is no one out enjoying the night?" Danielle asked. She had thought something was mentioned about a night off…

"Hey guys, I was out on a date with Anya, and we got to talking about something interesting." He pushed Anya forward, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but where she was standing right now. "You guys want to know about an Ascension? Then talk to the only person who might have lived through one."

Danielle stared at the girl, who seemed to shrink under her gaze. It was a gaze perfected by years of questioning suspects as a cop and detective. "How exactly did you live through an Ascension?" She stood up and walked toward Anya, slowly circling her like a predator would. (Old habits die very hard.)

"I'm…I'm an ex-demon. I was a vengeance demon for over one-thousand years." She smiled nervously. "But I'm human now. I didn't ask to be, but now I am. It takes some getting use to."

"I imagine it does." Danielle continued to stare at her, but backed away. "Go ahead and share, please."

Anya swallowed and walked over to the table and sat down. Xander followed her, sat beside her, while Rupert stood up at the head of the table, and watched her while she talked. Danielle kept her distance from the table, but paid close attention. All of the others would have to be informed of this later, if anything useful actually came from it.

Anya took a deep breath and began her story. "About eight hundred years ago in the Kastka Vallies above the Urals, there was a sorcerer there who achieved Ascension. Became the embodiment of the demon Lo-Hash. I was there cursing a shepherd who had been unfaithful. His wife had wished that all his sheep would lie with..." She began to tell the last part more happily, like looking back on a fond memory.

Danielle only knew a little about vengeance demons. At best, she had only been around in the end to clean up the messes they made with their wishes. This was the closest that she had ever come to being near one, and she had to restrain herself from throttling the girl. "Can we get back to the task at hand?" she finally snapped.

It seemed to bring Anya back to attention. "Sorry," she said quickly. "Lo-Hash was ... It-it decimated the village within hours. Maybe three people got out." She paused, taking another deep breath. "I've seen some horrible things in my time. I've been the cause of most of them, actually, but this..."

Rupert interrupted her. "I'm sorry, but Lo-Hash was a four-winged soul killer, am I right?" Anya nodded. "I was given to understand that they're not that fierce. Of all the demons that we've faced..."

"You've never seen a demon," Anya said flatly.

"Excuse me?" Danielle interjected. "Um…several of us around here fight them for a living…well, a living of sorts."

Before Danielle got to babbling again, Anya stepped in. "All the demons that walk the earth are tainted, are human hybrids like vampires. The Ascension means that a human becomes pure demon. They're different."

"Different? How?" Xander asked. Danielle had forgotten that he was even there for a moment, getting lost in the story.

"Well, for one, they're bigger."


	11. Chapter 11 Graduation Day, pt 2

"They're bigger? Well, that's fantastic." Sure, Danielle knew that she was being the pessimist again, but how could she help it? "We were expecting big. Exactly how big are we talking here? Are we talking, say, house big, dragon big, or more like 'don't even bother, we're all gonna die' big?"

"The last one," Anya replied in a matter of fact tone. "What are the rituals being used? Maybe I can help you pick out what demon it is."

"Well, the Mayor needed something called the Box of…Grav-locks?" From what Danielle could tell, Buffy could not remember how to pronounce anything.

"It's Gavrock, Buffy. It's a box with an infinite amount of spiders that are the size of most dinner plates that the Mayor needs to eat." Danielle looked over to see Wesley standing in the doorway. He must have been one of the several people that Rupert called when the 'night off' got ruined. Danielle could spot an unhappy Cordelia behind him, dressed up even more than usual. Could this have possibly interrupted a date between the Watcher Junior and Cordelia? If only Wesley was that interesting.

Everyone filed in and sat around the table as Anya retold her story. "However, the Box of Gavrock doesn't ring a bell. It must be a different demon than Lo-Hash."

"Well, there must be something that you can remember that would be useful," Buffy snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

Before Anya could say anything else, Danielle heard the library doors opening again. Thinking that it might be Angel, Danielle looked up, only to have her heart jump up through her throat, out of her mouth to escape, and go running for its little life. It was the Mayor coming through the door, with the same creepy smile plastered on his face. If Danielle did not know any better, she would think that it was tattooed on his face.

"So, this is the inner sanctum." Everyone at once pulled away from the Mayor's presence. Danielle caught Buffy moving the newspaper with the professor's murder on the front page, taking it off of the table and putting it behind her back. "Faith tells me this is where you folks like to hang out, concoct your little schemes. I tell you, it is just nice to see that some young people are still interested in reading in this modern era. So, what are kids reading nowadays?"

Buffy made another grab for one of the books that Danielle had been reading, but the Mayor beat her to it. He opened it up to where Danielle had been reading and started to recite the words out loud. "'The beast will walk upon the earth and darkness will follow. The several races of man will be as one in their terror and destruction.' Aw, that is kind of sweet. Different races coming together."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You never even get a little tired of hearing yourself speak, do you?"

The Mayor chuckled. "That's one spunky little girl you've raised." He looked Rupert directly in the eye. "I'm going to eat her."

It was only after the shots rang out that Danielle realized that she had drawn her gun and fired three shots into the Mayor's chest. She watched as the Mayor staggered back, and then regained his balance. "Whoa! Well now, that was a little thoughtless." He looked down and watched as the three bullets pushed themselves out of his chest. He bent down and picked up the bullets, putting them in his pocket. "You're an officer of the law. You of all people should be setting a better example for all of these private citizens than just going around and willy-nilly shooting people, Officer Smyth."

Danielle just glared at him. "That's Detective Smyth to you." She kept her firearm raised, ready to fire again. She knew that it would not do more than knock him back, but that would be enough to give them time to get out of there if it was necessary. "Now get the fuck out before I check and see if I can shoot fast enough to take your head off. I'm sure it would be an interesting study to see how long it would take for it to grow back."

The Mayor just smiled again and took a deep breath. "I smell fear. That is smart. Some of your deaths will be quick, if that's worth anything."

"I believe she said to get the fuck out," Rupert said from beside her.

The Mayor turned to start to leave. "Well, see you at graduation." He stopped at the door, but did not turn around as he continued to speak. "You don't want to miss my commencement address. It's going to be one heck of a speech."

Danielle did not lower her weapon until she could hear the door to the front of the school open and close, taking the now whistling Mayor out with it. "That man is far too happy-go-lucky for his own good," Danielle said as she re-sheathed her weapon.

"That was really cool," Xander said from behind her.

"Look, I've told you guys all that I know. I know that I don't want to be in town for graduation when the Mayor starts to get all 'people-eater,' so...can I go now?" Anya was already inching her way to the door.

"Go ahead and get out of here," Buffy said. Anya did not need to be told twice, running for the door and clearing out of there.

"Well, there goes my date," Xander said with a sigh. "But still, that was really cool." He headed out, seemingly to try and calm her down.

"That was also incredibly reckless," Wesley said, walking around her and coming out so that he was standing in front of everyone. "You could have accidently shot someone or the Mayor might try and cause trouble for us now."

"The Mayor has bigger problems than one lady cop who lost her temper in a fit of protectiveness," Buffy said to him. "He's thinking more about his Ascension. He doesn't really have the time to meddle with us."

"And I've been on the force for almost ten years, Mr. Pryce," Danielle snapped. "I greatly resent the fact that you think that my shooting is so terrible after all of that training that I might unintentionally hurt someone. I only shoot the people I mean to shoot." One good way to piss off any cop is to tell them that their shooting skills suck.

"There's nothing else that we can do tonight, I don't believe." Rupert seemed to sense that it was starting to get volatile in here again. "Go home, and try to not think about this so much. We can regroup tomorrow."

"Do you still think that I should go by the Professor's house?" Buffy asked.

"If Angel is going to go with you, then you should go ahead and go tonight. If you're going by yourself, then I suggest that you wait until tomorrow." Rupert looked at her. "I don't want you to go there by yourself at night when any vampire can enter that place after you."

"I'll call and let you know if we go tonight or not." Buffy started to head out of the door.

"Call me at home. I don't think that any of us should stay here anymore tonight," Rupert said and Buffy was out the door. Everyone stared at him for a minute before he said, "I mean it this time. Go home."

"Didn't I already hear something about a night off once?" Cordelia asked. "I don't want to go home and get comfortable only for you to change your mind again."

Rupert shook his head in exasperation. "Sorry to disturb your evening of whatever it was that you were doing, but we had learned something important that might save your life on graduation. We thought that you would like to know about it."

Cordelia sighed. "Well, thanks for the heads up. You promise that there will be no more interruptions, though?"

"Yes, Cordelia, I promise. Now go and enjoy your night."

"Ok," she said, turning to look at Wesley. "Can we finish our date now? I didn't dress up just to be in the library all night." Instead of listening to him stutter what Danielle knew would eventually lead to an affirmative answer, Cordelia just took him by the hand and lead him out of the room.

After they were gone, Danielle and Rupert were alone. "So, didn't you mention something about getting the hell out of here?" Danielle asked him.

"Yes, let's get out of here and try to not think about the Ascension any more tonight," Rupert said to her.

"Do you think that's possible? This thing is kind of hanging over our heads," Danielle replied, not really believing that they could so easily put aside something as big as the Ascension.

He took her by her hand. "Let's just get out of here and try to relax. We'll see how it goes." With a nod, she followed him out of the door. They left and by the time that they had reached his apartment, Buffy had already called. She left a message saying that she had gotten a hold of Angel and they were going to go over there together. They were going to see if they could find anything that would tell them what the professor knew so that the Mayor would send Faith over to take care of him.

"Well, it seems as if that will be taken care of." Danielle watched as Rupert deleted the message on his answering machine. "So, are you hungry? We could order out. Sunnydale has a great Thai food restaurant. I remember Thai being your favorite."

"It still is," Danielle said with a smile. "I can't believe that you remembered that after all of this time." She settled in on the sofa as Rupert called and ordered food for them. It also appeared that he remembered exactly what her favorite dish was, because he ordered it for her without having to ask her what it was.

By the time that the food arrived, they were wrapped up in deep conversation that was a mixture of memories and different stories of what they had been doing for the past ten years.

"You know," Danielle started as Rupert stood up and got the food at the door, "I kind of miss the earring that you used to have in your ear." She remembered that he had worn an earring in one of his ears back in New York City, but he did not have it in anymore. If she looked hard enough, though, she could spot the old hole where the earring had been.

"I didn't think that an earring matched the image of a librarian, so I stopped wearing it." He went into the kitchen, and came out a few minutes later with some plates and silverware for them. "I seem to remember a certain hairstyle that included cotton-candy colored strands."

Danielle started to fill a plate with food for her, smiling. "Yeah, well, a friend of mine told me that pink hair wouldn't exactly get me accepted into the police academy, no matter how strong I was." She took a few bites of her food. "Not that I really wanted to give up the glorious pink mane. I just wanted to make sure that I got hired."

"That is very true." He fixed his own plate, setting back and beginning to eat. "I guess that we both have images to keep up."

"Are you going to continue being the librarian at the high school after Buffy graduates?" Danielle knew that he would stay wherever Buffy went, but working at the high school would no longer be necessary.

"I actually haven't thought too much about it." He turned to her and smiled. "I think that's the first time in days that you haven't put an 'if' before anything that is beyond graduation."

"Huh…you're right." Of course, she was in a better mood than she had been in for days. That probably had a lot to do with it. "Who knows, maybe I'll live past the day after tomorrow. I certainly hope so."

They finished their meal in silence, but Danielle was thinking to herself. She knew why she was feeling so defeatist about her ability to survive this. Sure, she was a Slayer and could handle herself. Also, she had been a cop for ten years. She had been shot at. She had dealt with gang violence. Yet, she felt as if she were in over her head about this. It was not that she felt that the Mayor would not be defeated. She was pretty sure that she was going to die.

Danielle had been dealing with vampires and demons for over ten years. She had even averted an apocalypse or two in her time. Still, since moving to New Orleans, she had mostly been doing upkeep on the city. Nothing supernatural really happened there, other than a couple of vampires or demons from time to time. Sure, there was lots of voodoo, but most practitioners were not much of a problem for her. Hell, most of them did not actually cause any problems. They really kept to themselves. Danielle just felt like she was completely out of her range.

When they finished eating, she took the plates and went to the kitchen to wash them and to put the leftovers into the refrigerator. As she was washing one of the plates, she heard Rupert come into the kitchen. "You're worried, aren't you?" he asked.

"I keep having this bad feeling that I am going to die." She did not turn around to face him as she spoke, instead continuing to wash the same plate. "I've never dealt with anything quite as daunting as a Mayor, with all the resources of both the town and the supernatural population, which is very large in Sunnydale, turning himself into a giant pure demon…whatever, and frankly, I'm terrified of what might happen next." Suddenly, all she wanted to do was hurl the plate she was holding as hard as she could against the wall, but instead she calmly set it to dry in the dish drainer.

She turned around to face him. "I just…I worry, a lot. Not about anyone else's abilities…" She paused for a moment. "Well, maybe Wesley's abilities, but not yours or any of those kids or certainly not Buffy's. It is my own abilities that I worry about. I am used to being the one with the bigger fighting power. It's been a long time since I've dealt with anything close to this magnitude and I'm worried that maybe I'm too old to be able to handle this."

"You're telling the man over a decade older than you that you feel too old to do this?" Rupert asked her with a grin.

That seemed to break her moroseness. She may have been looking for a reason to laugh at this point, but damnit, she would take anything that she could get. What started as giggling quickly spread into doubled over laughter. Rupert laughed with her, and soon they were on the floor, leaning against the cabinets as they continued to giggle.

"Feel better?" Rupert asked her, looking over.

"It did a little. That did put it into perspective." She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You seem awfully optimistic about all of this. How do you feel about what we're about to face, even if it's a flying dragon thing that breathes fire?"

He moved and put his arm around her waist, and she nestled into his side. "I have faith in everyone around me, including myself, and you. I think that you'll come through this just fine, Danielle."

Danielle took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to use it as a way to calm herself down. Instead, all she did was notice that Rupert smelled exactly the same to her as he smelled all those years ago. He used the same aftershave and cologne, something warm and spicy that she never knew the name of. He had also always smelled faintly of leather, probably from leather bound books, and he still smelled that way. This just caused her to get riled up in a completely different way.

Danielle looked up at him, getting ready to say something, but she completely forgot it when she saw that he was looking right at her. When he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, it was both terribly shocking and perfectly natural to her. When Rupert deepened the kiss, it made Danielle think of being in JFK airport again, tears pouring down her face, which were only stopped because of the pure surprise that occurred when Rupert kissed her that first time. It had been over before she could react, with him turning away and rushing to his plane.

This time she could analyze it more. Rupert's lips were soft, and he brought up a hand to cup her face. With his free arm, he wrapped it around her waist, pulling her closer so that she was sitting in his lap. She adjusted herself so that she was now straddling his lap, so that she could be more comfortable and still be facing him.

He kissed her again, but pulled away after a moment. "Would you…ah…I hope that this isn't too forward, but…would you like to…?" Rupert looked up toward the staircase.

Danielle quickly caught his drift. "It's been ten years, Rupert. Tearing my clothing off and going at it on the kitchen floor wouldn't be too forward at this point." To say that her patience had worn thin would be an understatement. Lust, love, a ten-year wait, and just the last month of tension had basically killed her ability for subtly.

Rupert just chuckled and, once Danielle had gotten off of his lap, led her up to the bedroom.

It was a ringing phone that woke her up. At first, she couldn't believe that it had really happened. She checked under the sheet to see that yes, she was naked, so that made her a believer. She had definitely just had sex with Rupert.

Of course, the sleeping, naked Rupert lying next to her with his arm draped around her waist could have told her that.

Danielle groaned and pulled the sheet over her head, hoping to block out the infernal noise that seemed to want to interrupt her happy moment. She had shut her eyes and was hoping to get back to sleep when she felt Rupert stir.

"Is that the phone?" Rupert asked, still sounding more asleep than awake.

"No, it's a bad dream. Go back to sleep," Danielle said with a smile. The phone stopped ringing, seemingly agreeing with her assessment.

"Perhaps you're correct," Rupert said, pulling her closer and kissing her. "I don't think that I can go back to sleep, though."

"Well, we don't have to sleep," Danielle said. She was going to say more when the phone started to ring again.

"It might be important," Rupert said, still kissing her in between words.

"Probably should answer it, then," Danielle said, not stopping, either.

It took another minute for him to get downstairs and answer the phone, but the phone call seemed to be brief, because he was back quickly and grabbing for clothes. "I take it that something happened?" Danielle asked, sitting up.

"Apparently Faith shot Angel with an arrow and, while she missed the heart, it seems to have been poisoned. Buffy was crying too much for me to understand much more than that. They're both at the library right now." When Rupert said 'Faith," Danielle hopped out of bed, starting to grab for clothes as well.


	12. Chapter 12 Graduation Day, pt 3

Danielle and Rupert arrived at the library, where Buffy was inconsolable. "Faith shot him with an arrow!" Buffy exclaimed as soon as they rushed into the room. "At first I just thought that she had bad aim and missed his heart, but then he got sick!" Buffy stepped out of the way to show Angel lying on the table, gasping for air, which was kind of strange, since vampires don't need to breath. Then again, people gasp for air when they are in pain. Old human reflexes still seem to stick around after almost three hundred years, it appears.

Danielle walked over to the table to look over the wound in Angel's shoulder. It was red all around the wound and oozing blood. "A vampire's wound shouldn't look like this," Danielle said, more to herself than anyone else.

"It's poison," Angel gasped, making Danielle jump back just a little. She didn't think that he was still able to talk. "I can feel it."

"That's not too shocking," Wesley said, carrying a book as he came out of the shadows. "Faith and the Mayor want you distracted from the Ascension tomorrow."

"Do you just live here?" Danielle snapped. She was already getting tired of people just popping out of nowhere on her. Was that just a thing in Sunnydale, popping out of the shadows like some old Hollywood monster?

Wesley didn't dignify her with an answer. "I've been researching it since Buffy brought him in," he said, sounding proud of himself. "I think I've found what it is. 'Killer of the Dead' is what it's called. No known cure."

"There is one cure," Rupert said quietly.

Everyone turned back to him. "What is it?" Buffy asked. Danielle could see the tears gleaming in her eyes. "Tell me, Giles. The suspense is killing Angel here."

"The blood of a Slayer is the only way to reverse the effects," Rupert told her.

Danielle watched as Buffy's face set into a determined look. "Good."

"Good? What did I miss?" Xander asked as he walked in. Danielle was sure that Buffy had called everyone as soon as Angel got sick from the poison.

"No, it's perfect. Angel needs to drain a Slayer, then I'll bring him one." Buffy started to head for the door, but Danielle stopped her.

"Buffy, if Angel drains all of Faith's blood, it will kill her," Danielle said, holding on to Buffy's arm to keep her from leaving.

"For justice, it's not un-poetic," Buffy replied, trying to pull away. "And it won't kill her if she's already dead."

"I've got a better idea that won't kill anyone," Danielle told her, pulling her away and into the office, slamming the door behind the two of them before anyone could follow. She leaned against the door as she told Buffy her plan. "Instead of killing one Slayer and spoon feeding her to him, what about the two of us both giving blood to him? Do you think it matters if he gets it from two or one?"

Buffy seemed to think on it for a moment, then smiled. "No, I guess it doesn't, but what about Faith?"

"We'll deal with Faith when the time comes, tomorrow." Danielle continued to lean against the door as others knocked on it. "There's no need to become like Faith just to save someone. There are better ways, ones that no one has to die, at least not yet."

"OK, your idea is way better than mine, that's for sure," Buffy agreed. "For all I know, Faith would find a way to prevent me from feeding her to him."

"She is probably expecting you to come and find her now as we speak," Danielle told her. "It's better this way." She opened the door, only to have Xander and Rupert spill through the doorway. "Bring Angel in here, because we have an idea to save him."

"But you guys said that the only cure was the blood of a Slayer," Xander protested. "What are you going to give him otherwise?"

"The blood of two Slayers," Danielle answered. "Buffy and I will both give blood to Angel. Hopefully it will be enough."

Xander looked at the two of them with a confused expression until it seemed to dawn on him. "You know, I knew that all of this 'I'm the only one' stuff was just an act," Xander said with a grin. "You never were the only one, were you, Buff?"

"It's nice having a non-crazy extra Slayer on hand," Buffy said with a grin.

"I thought I recognized you," Wesley said, standing behind Xander and Rupert. "I saw a picture of you once. I thought you died."

"Ever heard of CPR?" Rupert asked him. "It works miracles, including having another Slayer called before I could revive her." Rupert turned to glare at Wesley. "If you tell the Council that she's still alive, I'll beat you to a bloody pulp."

Wesley visibly gulped. "I didn't have that intention," he said, taking another step back. "In the eyes of the Council, she's fulfilled her duty."

"And I still have to work for you guys because?" Buffy asked. "Oh wait, the other Slayer is a loon, that's right."

"She has proven herself to be past saving at this point," Wesley told her.

"Let's get Angel, and we can discuss problems the Council has later, guys," Danielle reminded them. She wasn't exactly thrilled to have to say that she was a Slayer, but the time for cover stories really had come and gone.

Xander and Rupert left and carried Angel into the room a few seconds later, and Danielle could hear others arrive as they laid him out on a little couch that Rupert had in his office. "We need people to hold him down while we do this," Rupert said. Him and Xander got on both sides on him. "The demon inside of him hasn't had human blood for a while, and it might try to break free. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Buffy….you shouldn't do this," Angel wheezed. "So much can go wrong."

"You're right," Danielle said before Buffy could. "We need your help for tomorrow, though." The look on her face said that she wouldn't be doing this otherwise. "Let's get this over with, alright?"

"I'll go first," Buffy said, reaching for one of the many knives that they had just lying around this place. "As soon as I start going limp, pull me away." She took the knife and cut open her wrist, pressing it to Angel's lips. He tried to turn his head away, but Buffy just followed his head and, soon enough, he started to drink.

After a little while, Buffy's legs started to give, and Danielle pulled her away before they buckled. "Are you ok?" Danielle asked, pulling out a first aid kit and starting to fix Buffy's wrist.

Buffy nodded. "I'm fine, just a little light headed." Wesley walked over. "Let him take care of me. Go take care of Angel."

Danielle sighed, and took the same knife that Buffy used. She walked back over to where Angel was laying. He looked a little better, but still needed more.

"I don't like this," Rupert said as Danielle cut her wrist.

"And I'm dying to do this," Danielle said sarcastically. "This is something that needs to be done." She pressed her wrist to Angel's mouth, and, this time, there was no hesitation before he started to drink. "I still don't understand how anyone can enjoy this."

Before Danielle could get lightheaded, Angel pushed her away and sat up. The wound on his shoulder had almost completely healed now. Danielle sat down and Rupert doctored up her wrist. "So, now can we get back to dealing with the Mayor wanting to turn into a big scary demon thing?" Cordelia poked her head in and asked. She had arrived at some point, along with everyone else. "We're pretty sure we figured out what kind of demon that the Mayor is going to turn into."

"We're listening," Buffy said, now sitting next to Angel. He looked very much back to normal, well, normal for a blood-sucking fiend, anyway.

"We've been doing some more reading on the guy that Faith killed, Mr. Wirth, and it seems that he headed an expedition in Hawaii, digging in old lava beds near a dormant volcano." Cordelia walked into the room, followed by Willow. "Willow looked him up on the internet."

"I'm not fascinated yet," Buffy said. She was practically cooing over Angel at the moment, but Danielle figured that she might be acting the same way if the person she cared most about almost died.

Willow shook her head. "He found something underneath. A body, buried by an eruption." She handed Buffy a printed out sheet of paper. Danielle walked over to see the vague form of something very large, and probably very deadly. "Mr. Wirth thought that it might be some heretofore undiscovered dinosaur."

Angel cleared his throat. "You guys think that it's a demon?"

Rupert stood up. "Yes, that would be something that the Mayor would want to keep a secret. If it's the same kind of demon he's turning into and it's dead, it means that, well, he's only impervious to harm until the Ascension. In his demon form, he can be killed."

"Great. So all we need is a million tons of burning lava," Danielle said, sighing. "We're saved." Her maudlin feelings were coming back full force if that was the only way to kill the guy.

"Well, it's a start, anyway," Angel commented.

"You know, I think I have another idea," Rupert said, leaving the office and heading to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out a book after looking over the titles for a few minutes. The local villagers near the volcano site that Mr. Wirth worked on made reference to the legend of Ollokai." He showed everyone the book, which was about Hawaiian legends. "Now that I'm thinking about it, it might be a bastardization of Olvikan."

"Who's Olvikan?" Xander asked.

Wesley ran over to another bookshelf. "I know it's a demon, a very old one. We might have a picture."

Danielle smiled. "It's a good thing no one ever wanted to check any of these books out, huh?" She looked over the bookshelf in what had to be the occult section. "There are kids out there that could do serious damage with any of these."

"Yes, it was very convenient," Rupert said. He flipped through the book as everyone gathered around to look at the picture. Buffy reached over and flipped open the picture, not once, but twice, like a centerfold.

Danielle's eyes widened as Xander said, "We're going to need a bigger boat."


	13. Chapter 13 Graduation Day, pt 4

"We're going to need more than just a bigger boat," Willow said. "We're going to need a tank for this!"

"Or a volcano full of lava," Danielle interjected. "Anyone got one of those laying around?"

"A tank might not be a bad idea," Buffy said.

Everyone turned to her. "Excuse me, but where are you going to procure a tank?" Rupert asked her.

"Not a literal tank, Giles," Buffy corrected him. "We need to prepare to go to war for this." She walked away from the book to sit down in a chair. "We need to arm everyone, and I do mean everyone, all of the kids at graduation. Everyone needs to get together on this." Buffy looked around at everyone. "So, am I crazy?"

Willow tried to smile at her. "Well, crazy is such a strong word, Buffy."

"Let's not rule it out, though," Rupert said with a shake of his head.

Buffy turned to look at him. "You don't think that it can be done."

"I didn't say that. I might, but just not yet," he corrected her.

Cordelia rolled her eyes and sat down. "I personally don't think it's impossible to come up with a crazier plan."

Oz, who had hung back from speaking since he arrived with Willow, said, "We attack the Mayor with humus." Everyone turned to stare at him. "I'm just trying to keep things in perspective."

"Thank you," Cordelia said sarcastically. "My point, however, is, crazy or not, it's pretty much the only plan. Besides, it's Buffy's, and she's slay gal, you know, Miss little likes-to-fight. So..."

Xander interrupted her. "I think that there's a 'yea' somewhere in there."

"Well, I am going to need every one of you for this, especially you, Xander. You are kind of my key guy, here," Buffy said, looking over at him.

Xander looked very surprised. "Me, key?" He paused to take a deep breath. "Okay, - pride, - humility…and here is the mind numbing fear." He sighed. "What do I have to do?"

"Do you remember any of your military training from when you became soldier guy?" Buffy asked him.

"Soldier guy?" Danielle asked. "Is this another week of living in Sunnydale?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Cordelia said. "Some of them turned into their costumes last year for Halloween."

"Talk about trick or treat," Danielle said.

"Yeah, it pretty much sucked for everyone but me," Xander said. "Yeah, I remember my training. You needing another rocket launcher?"

Danielle's eyes widened at the thought of all the laws being broken during this exchange. Seriously, she could do a lot more than just lose her job just for being here, taking part in the conversation. Of course, sometimes there were more important things than a person's job, like saving the world and whatever.

Buffy regretfully shook her head at Xander. "A rocket launcher is not going to get it done. I mean, it took a volcano to kill one of these things last time."

Rupert got up and walked toward her. "Um, Buffy, all of this is rather depended on your being able to control the Mayor." He turned to look at all of them. "How are you, or any of us really, going to do that?"

"He's got to have a weakness of some sort," Buffy said, putting her head in her hands, seemingly thinking it over. "What about Faith?"

Danielle nodded. "Yeah, he thinks of her as a surrogate daughter, right?" Buffy responded by nodding. "Threaten her, and maybe we can distract him long enough to take him out…somehow or another. Xander, think you can procure a tank?" She was only half joking with the last part.

"Maybe not a tank, but I think I've got an idea or two up my sleeve," Xander said with a grin.

"Well, if that isn't the shock of the century, then I don't know what is," Cordelia said with a roll of her eyes.

"So, we have figured out the weakness of the Mayor," Wesley said. He had picked up the papers that Danielle had procured about the Ascension at some point. Danielle hadn't been paying enough attention to him to really know when. He tended to blend into the background for her like that. "Now, we need to figure out a plan in order to kill him."

"Thank you, Oh Master of the Obvious," Xander groaned. "Surely your insight will save us all."

"No need to be a jackass just because he can read big words, Xander," Cordelia snapped at him.

Danielle sighed. She could sense yet another fight coming on. "Alright," she snapped. "That much is clear. Xander, why don't you and Buffy work out that 'tank and army' plan? I'm going to go and get supplies."

"What sort of supplies?" Rupert asked.

"Got a contact with a Catholic priest in this town?"

***

After a visit with the priest in town, Danielle was sitting at the library table, emptying shotgun shells of their pellets and replacing them with wooden rosary beads that had been blessed by a priest. Not exactly something that was easy to come by, but the priest they had talked to understood what was going on. Besides, Rupert had to of been getting all of that holy water from somewhere all of these years.

"What are you doing?" Wesley asked, sitting down across from her. Cordelia was putting away books in boxes, and Wesley had been helping her. For some reason, he saw fit to come over and talk to her.

Danielle looked up at him. "Get bored with books for once?" she asked.

"They don't quite hold the allure when they are being packed away as when you are reading them," Wesley admitted to her.

Danielle could see bits of Rupert in him, although maybe that was just due to his Watcherness and Britishness. Then again, they were both book nuts, so maybe resemblances were there somewhere.

She gave him a little bit of a half-smile. "I'm replacing the pellets in these shotgun shells with rosary beads," she told him. She picked up another shotgun shell, popped off the top with a set of pliers, dumped the pellets out, and poured a small handful of rosary beads back in, quickly replacing the cap and hammering it back into place. "Shotgun shells usually don't work worth a damn against vampires, but there work like magic. If you hit them in the heart, they even dust. Of course, aiming a shotgun is a bit of a bitch." She got an idea. "Do you know how to shoot?"

Wesley looked down at the table. "Actually, yes. I was top marksman at the Watcher's Academy as well as Head Boy."

"Seriously, what is Head Boy?" It sounded flat out awful to Danielle, but Wesley seemed quite proud of it.

"It's like Class President, of sorts," Rupert answered from behind her. "I got a hold of the shotguns you wanted. I'd rather you not ask where I procured them from."

"In order to keep my mind as clear of law breaking as possible, sure, why not?" Danielle said. She had already told Xander and Buffy at some point that night that she didn't want to hear anything about what they were doing for her own plausible deniability purposes. "I believe this makes you on shotgun duty, Wesley," she told him, sliding one of the shotguns over to him. "I don't believe that there will be the usual problem of police officers hearing shots to worry about tomorrow."

Danielle was pretty sure that she caught Wesley briefly give her a real smile before British stoicism came back down on his face. "For now, you can help me with these shells," she told him, sliding an extra set of pliers over to him.

***

Danielle and Wesley had finally finished off all of the shells by four in the morning. Danielle wasn't sure what the extra part of the plan was for the Mayor, since she merely plugged her ears when Buffy and Xander came back in with a bunch of boxes around three-thirty, but it looked like something severe. Of course, that was what the needed at this point.

Now they were all finishing up packing up the library, while Rupert was driving the books back and forth. They had realized that there would be an eclipse during the Ascension, so that at least put Angel back in the game as well. Everything seemed to be falling into place for them.

Soon enough, graduation was at hand.

Danielle was pretty sure her eyes were going to soon start bleeding. Like the rest of them, she might have gotten an entire hour of sleep the night before, but was so wired from a mixture of fear and excitement that she felt like her skin was buzzing. She was hiding out in the library with Angel, Wesley, and the others at the moment, watching the graduation ceremony from the window.

"Is he actually going to try and give a speech?" Danielle asked as the Mayor started to talk.

"Well, he is pure and unadulterated evil, you know," Angel said back to her.

"That bastard. Oh yeah, he's going to die now for sure," Danielle replied.

Then the Mayor started to grimace in pain and babble on about his destiny. "Finally, for fuck's sake," Danielle whispered. This meant that they needed to start moving in and get near the students.

"I thought that he might torment us and finish the bloody speech," Wesley muttered as they rushed through the hallways.

They got outside just as he was changing into his pure demon form, which still looked mostly dragon like to Danielle. She didn't have time to ponder this, though. The eclipse was coming just as they got outside as well, which meant that vampires would be coming soon.

Danielle heard Buffy scream 'now' which meant that all of the other students were pulling out their weapons as well. It seemed fitting that all of the students get a chance to fight for their lives at the moment. It was their graduation from Sunnydale as well, after all. Time to step up to the fight.

Danielle looked toward the front steps of the school just in time to see Faith leading an army of vampires up and into the courtyard where the ceremony was supposed to be taking place. Two students were manning what appeared to be fire shooters* at the Mayor demon, so that left the vampires to most of the rest of the students, plus the three of them. *I have went completely stupid and forgotten what they are called, but you remember the scene, right?*

Oh, well, there were the archers as well. Xander was leading them. Seemed that, in all of that military training that he had gained, he now knew how to lead an army. Good thing, that knowledge.

The first line of vampires went down with the arrows, while Danielle and Wesley took out two more that had been at Faith's left and right with their shotguns. When Faith looked in their direction, Danielle just grinned and waved at her. This seemed to piss the girl off enough to cause her to come after her.

"Go that way!" Danielle shouted at Wesley, who took off in the opposite direction from her. Danielle ran closer toward the school, with Faith in hot pursuit. Danielle took out another random vampire along the way that had just finished off some blond girl (poor thing) along the way before sheathing her shotgun and grabbing a pistol she had hidden away in a bush before Faith tackled her from behind.

Danielle went down, rolling around in the grass before she could kick the girl off with her foot. They both jumped up at the same time. "You really think that you're going to take me out with a pistol?" Faith asked, grinning at her.

Danielle just fired a shot at her, hitting her in the shoulder. "You're going to have to do better than that," Faith said, gearing up to rush at her, only to be surprised by Buffy coming up from the side and stabbing her, with her own knife left behind at the high school, in the stomach.

"You really let you anger distract you too easily," Danielle said, lowering the gun. "It's a shame. You could have been a good Slayer. Instead, you're just a waste of space."

A roar of either pain or anger came just as Faith slipped to the ground. This meant that the Mayor had seen them, just as they had planned earlier. Kill Faith in front of him to anger him enough so that he's not thinking clearly. They both watched as the Mayor knocked one of the fire kids out of the way, him landing on the ground with a sickening thud, and start in their direction.

"Oh mother of god," Danielle muttered. The next thing she knew, the Mayor was in front of her and, with a flick of his paw, tossed her in the air as if she were a doll. She didn't feel like she had enough time to scream before she slammed into a tree, back first.

She hadn't even realized she had been impaled by a branch until it broke off and she fell to the ground. That was some pain that she had never felt in all of her years of being a cop and a Slayer, and she had even died once. She heard Buffy taunting the Mayor, like she had told her to do, but couldn't concentrate enough on the words through all of the pain she was feeling.

She could hear crashing, glass breaking and walls shattering, and pushed herself up against the tree so she could watch. She had only let Buffy and Xander tell her enough so that she was glad to be far away enough to watch what would happen next. She watched as the school exploded into a firey ball, hoping that Buffy had gotten out alive.

"Good going, kid," Danielle mumbled. She watched through a haze as someone, Wesley maybe, rushed over to her.

"Danielle!" That was the last thing she heard before everything went black.


	14. Epilogue

"So, are you going to go and pack up the rest of her things?" Buffy asked as she looked up at her Watcher. The two of them were standing in the airport in Sunnydale. Rupert Giles was booked on a flight back to New Orleans to help pack up Danielle's apartment and to pick up her dog.

"Yes, I think that it's the right thing to do," he responded to her.

"We both do," Danielle said, hobbling a little as she returned from the bathroom. "You're the one who invited me to live with you, after all."

The hospital after the graduation ceremony had been full of people, but there were far less casualties than what they had expected. Only the Principal and two students had died in the attack, which no one was even bothering to try and explain at the moment. Who could?

Danielle remembered it all through a haze. Wesley screaming something about how he was supposed to watch over Danielle and make sure that she didn't get hurt, someone else begging her to hang on, and then being in an ambulance while the EMTs tried to keep her heart pumping so that they could get her to the hospital. Things got even hazier after that. She was almost sure that she died again, but no one would tell her whether that happened or not. Why couldn't she stay alive?

Didn't matter, since she was alive now. When she woke up in the hospital, Rupert was there, sitting their asleep in the chair next to the bed. She had to poke him awake. He hugged and kissed her until she complained about not being able to breath, and then kept doing it for another minute before she had to push him off.

After she finally managed to get him off of her, he proposed to her. It would be romantic if she hadn't been half-dead at the time. Still pretty damn romantic, in her opinion. Of course, this required her to do things like a change in job, or at least job location. Her superior hadn't been that shocked to hear about her getting engaged. It seemed that everyone in her precinct had suspected she had gone to see some old flame or something to that affect. Her now former partner was thrilled, although sad to lose her.

Buffy had thought that all of it was romantic, plus she had seen the practical side of now having both an extra Slayer and a cop around. As she said in the hospital, she now might be able to avoid things like those pesky murder charges.

Danielle kind of worried about what she was getting into.

Still, she was so very glad that things seemed to finally be settling into place for her. She already had been hired by the police department in Sunnydale. Seemed like they could always use more cops. Of course, this meant playing dumb a lot, but it wasn't like she hadn't done that before.

Now, in the airport, the main thing that Danielle could think about was seeing her dog, Odin, again. "Let's get going, already," she said to Rupert. "Our plane will be leaving soon."

"Are you sure that you'll be alright?" Rupert asked Buffy, already picking up his bag so that he could leave as well.

"Don't you know? Summers are always quite in Sunnydale," Buffy told him with a grin. "Now get going, already. Don't miss you plane."

Rupert and Danielle exchanged quick goodbye hugs with Buffy and turned to leave. Rupert wrapped his arm protectively around Danielle's waist as they walked to the gate. Even with the stupid hole still healing in her side, Danielle was pretty sure that she was as happy as she could possibly be.


End file.
